JARVIS  OF 

HARVARD 


JARVIS     OF     HARVARD 


LISTEN  ! '  " 


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I  J  A  R  V  I  S    OF? 
(HARVARD? 


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Reginald     Wright     Kauffman 


With  a  frontispiece  by 
ROBERT     EDWARDS 


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L/MKEd 

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J    Boston:      L.     C.      PAGE      &    J 
|    COMPANY,      Publishers    | 


Copyright,  1901,  by  L.  C.  PAGE 
£f    COMPANY    (INCORPORATED) 

ALL      RIGHTS      RK8KRVK0 


TO 

i9Sg  l&ncle, 
COLONEL  SAMUEL  WRIGHT. 

0  "  more  than  kin,"  the  first,  the  best,  the  last, 
Do  you  remember  how  we,  hand  in  hand, 

The  man  and  child,  wonld  leave  the  troubled  town 
And  tread  the  summer  highways,  gay  and  green, 
With  feet  unwearied,  while  the  butterflies, 
All  yellow,  danced  above  the  buttercups, 
All  yellow  too  ?     How  underneath  the  trees, 
Tall,  graceful,  pungent  pines,  that  whispered  low 
Strange,  wistful  secrets,  like  the  trembling  lips 
Of  old  men  at  their  prayers,  we  looked  far  out 
From  hilltops  over  rivers  to  far  hills  ? 
And  how  you  peopled  all  that  fairyland 
Of  wood  and  sky  for  me  ?  —  Most  tried,  most  true, 
Nearest  and  dearest,  in  the  whirl  of  life 
On  trifling  friendships  and  on  casual  loves 

1  see  men  waste  their  lives  in  little  lusts. 
Not  so  at  least  have  we.     Just  this  I  pray : 
That  some  time,  not  so  long,  as  joyous  ghosts, 
After  the  weary  web  is  woven  quite, 

We  two  may  wander  forth  again,  we  two, 

And  hand  in  hand  once  more,  the  man  and  child, 

Live  those  days  over  then  forevermore. 

R.  W.  K. 

COLUMBIA,  PA., 

January  ist,  1901. 


PREFACE. 


ONE  for  whose  literary  judgment  I  have  the  great- 
est respect  has  warned  me,  after  reading  the  manu- 
script of  this  story,  that,  in  spite  of  the  prevailing 
notion  in  regard  to  the  futility  of  a  novel's  preface, 
some  sort  of  foreword  would  be  necessary  for  "Jar- 
vis  "  in  case  I  did  not  want  him  to  be  misunder- 
stood. This,  my  friend  was  good  enough  to  explain, 
was  not  because  I  had  not  been  sufficiently  clear  in 
the  tale  itself,  but  because  those  few  readers  most 
easily  offended  were  to  be  met  only  by  a  more 
dogmatic  form  of  statement  than  is  to  be  permitted 
in  the  course  of  a  legitimate  narrative. 

Acting,  therefore,  upon  this  advice,  let  me  now  say, 
once  and  for  all,  that  my  purpose  in  writing  this  book 
was  simply  to  tell  a  story.  In  the  course  of  that  en- 
deavour I  have  tried  merely  to  show  —  what  should, 
at  any  rate,  be  generally  understood  —  that  American 
college  life,  not  only  at  Harvard  but  at  all  our  larger 
places  of  learning,  is  in  no  great  respect  different 
from  life  outside  of  those  institutions.  It  is  governed 
by  the  same  laws  and  offers  corresponding  rewards 


Vlll  PREFACE. 

and  penalties,  which  are,  with  equal  avidity,  sought 
after  or  avoided.  In  so  far  as  we  concern  ourselves 
with  both  its  academic  and  social  possibilities,  Har- 
vard life  is  not  unlike  that  of  any  other  great  college 
in  that  there,  as  in  the  outside  world,  the  man  who 
succeeds  is  the  man  who  sets  before  him  some  ideal 
other  than  that  of  pleasure.  The  men  who  seek 
enjoyment  only  are  common  to  all  colleges,  and  are, 
from  their  very  nature,  conspicuous  in  all,  but  they 
are  not  in  the  majority  and  they  do  not  succeed. 

If,  then,  this  story  is  for  any  reason  to  be  considered 
as  distinct  from  other  college  stories,  it  is  simply  be- 
cause so  few  writers  of  this  class  of  fiction  have  really 
understood  the  actual  Undergraduate,  or,  understand- 
ing him,  have  set  him  truthfully  upon  paper.  They 
have,  on  the  contrary,  done  a  tremendous  amount 
of  harm  by  treating  him  nearly  always  as  merely  an 
irresponsible  boy,  whereas  he  is  really  neither  the 
child  they  consider  him  nor  the  man  he  considers 
himself.  He  is,  in  a  word,  on  the  one  hand,  in  the 
most  delicate  state  of  transition,  as  susceptible  as  a 
chemist's  scale  whereof  a  feather's  weight  may  turn 
the  beam;  and,  on  the  other,  a  soul  in  which  the 
man  and  boy  are  terribly,  if  secretly,  contending  for 

ultimate  and  enduring  supremacy. 

R.  W.  K. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAOB 

I.  THE  BOY 1 

II.  THE  SHIRT  OF  NESSUS 17 

III.  TRAUME 27 

IV.  THE  ETERNAL  MASCULINE 33 

V.  TOWER  LYCEUM 49 

VI.  A  GIRL  IN  A  GARDEN 70 

VII.  A  JUNIOR  UNDERSTUDY 86 

VIII.  EXPLANATIONS 99 

IX.  DESTINY'S  POST  FACTO 108 

X.  EXIT  A  BOY 124 

XL  THE  WAY  OF  A  MAID 140 

XII.  A  CHANCE  ENCOUNTER 152 

XIII.  MELODRAMA  IN  LITTLE 166 

XIV.  "AT  CARDS  FOR  KISSES" 185 

XV.  A  BROKEN  REED 207 

XVI.  WHEN  KINGS  GO  FORTH  TO  BATTLE    ...  227 

XVII.  AN  ATHLETIC  TRAGEDY 240 

XVIII.  THE  PRICE  OF  DEFEAT  ........  262 

XIX.  RETROGRESSION 281 


X  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  PACK 

XX.    THE  LAW  OF  COINCIDENCE 299 

XXI.    THE  GOOD  FAIRY 311 

XXII.    HALF  GODS  Go 326 

XXIII.  THE  NEW  DISPENSATION 343 

XXIV.  WHAT  A  DANCE  MAY  Do 358 

XXV.    GOKURAKF 373 

XXVI.    THE  MAN 383 

XXVII.    MAN  AND  WOMAN •  «  399 


JARVIS  OF  HARVARD. 


CHAPTER  I. 
THE  BOY. 

SANDERS  THEATRE  was  crowded.  The  tradi- 
tional sea  of  faces  stretched  from  the  front  row 
beneath  the  platform,  where  sat  the  chattering 
groups  lucky  enough  to  have  come  down  to  col- 
lege with  an  acquaintance  already  formed  at  one 
of  the  large  preparatory  schools,  far  back  to  where 
the  most  tardy  and  lonely  Freshman  from  Kansas 
was  crushed  against  the  wall  of  the  rear  aisle,  strain- 
ing neck  and  eye  and  ear.  On  the  platform  were 
seating  themselves  those  "  Officers  of  Instruction  and 
Government "  who  had  not  been  so  fortunate  as  to 
escape  impression  for  this  service  of  welcoming  the 
College  newcomers. 

To  many  of  these  the  careless  glances  which  they 
cast  over  their  deferential  audience  revealed  nothing 
new,  and  therefore,  for  them,  nothing  striking.  The 
upturned  faces,  so  far  as  appearances  went,  were  sub- 
stantially the  same  faces  that  had  been  there  the  year 


F  HARVARD. 

before  and  would  be  there  in  the  years  to  come.  And 
yet  each  of  those  countenances  was  the  more  or  less 
imperfect  index  to  a  final  character  then  in  the  mak- 
ing; the  inadequate  concentration  of  the  hopes  of 
some  half  dozen  persons,  approaching,  often  with 
blushing  awkwardness  and  unconfessed  hesitation, 
the  psychological  instant  of  finality. 

Matters  of  such  small  instant  did  not,  in  any 
case,  trouble  the  faces  themselves.  On  the  con- 
trary, they  masked  but  poorly  an  impatience  which 
had  to  do  with  only  the  immediate  future.  Here  at 
last  was  "  Bloody  Monday,"  the  terrible  day  in  the 
Freshman  calendar,  of  which  "  old  grads  "  had  told 
them  with  sinister  winks  and  awful,  cryptic  sugges- 
tions; the  first  Monday  night  of  the  College  year, 
when  dire  things  were  to  happen  between  Massa- 
chusetts and  University,  and  every  new  lad  who 
roomed  on  the  Yard  must  have  a  punch  ready  for 
the  raids  of  upper  classmen.  Of  course,  nobody  had 
prepared  a  punch.  Nobody  ever  does.  But,  respect- 
ful as  all  were,  every  one  was  anxious  to  get  clear  of 
the  waves  of  mild  restraint  that  emanated  from  that 
platform  in  Sanders,  and  to  try  conclusions  with 
whatever  waited  without. 

Jarvis,  seated  in  the  centre  of  the  pit,  was  not 
exempt  from  this,  but  he  was  also  oddly  aware  of 
the  spiritual  significance  of  the  scene  about  him. 
He  wondered  if  the  fellow  at  his  right,  a  lad  almost 


THE  BOY.  3 

as  tall  as  himself,  and  not  half  so  broad,  shared  his 
sense  of  it,  and  if,  after  all,  he  cared. 

For  his  own  part,  he  was  still  much  of  the  Laodi- 
cean. He  belonged  as  yet  to  neither  one  extreme  nor 
the  other  of  the  life  about  him.  In  fact,  he  had  been 
a  trifle  late  in  arriving  at  Cambridge,  and,  for  that  and 
other  reasons  less  pleasant,  his  initiatory  experience 
had  been  one  of  turmoil.  Sitting  in  the  midst  of  this 
throng  of  lads,  among  whom,  as  yet  unknown,  were 
his  destined  companions  for  the  next  years  of  his  life, 
he  tried  in  vain  to  recall  the  greater  part  of  the  past 
few  days. 

Beyond  that  first  glimpse  of  the  Yard,  which  — 
next  to  his  last  sight  of  it  —  stands  out  the  most 
vivid  impression  in  the  life  of  a  Harvard  under- 
graduate, little  was  clear  to  him.  The  trips  from 
adviser  to  instructor,  from  Freshman  meeting  to 
office,  with  the  huge  orange  course-card  under  his 
arm ;  the  old  buildings,  with  their  quaint,  staring, 
little  window-panes ;  the  hundreds  of  new  faces,  —  all 
had  produced  on  him  only  the  effect  of  objects  seen 
in  a  fog,  his  mind  unable  to  retain  any  individual 
impression.  The  whole  thing  was  such  a  series  of 
mental  asterisks  that  it  reminded  him  of  nothing  so 
much  as  the  abridged  Second  Book  of  the  "  Faerie 
Queene"  that  his  tutor  had  vainly  endeavoured  to 
palm  off  on  him  the  year  before. 

One  or  two  men  he  knew,  and  no  more.     Across 


4  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

the  hall  from  him,  close  under  the  platform,  sat 
Bert  Hardy  in  laughing  conversation  with  some 
friends  from  St.  Paul's,  and  near  by  was  Stannard 
whose  acquaintance  he  had  made  when  registering 
and  trying  to  remember  his  religion  and  his  mother's 
maiden  name.  But  apart  from  these  two,  he  was 
a  stranger  to  almost  every  one  of  the  six  hundred 
of  his  classmates  in  the  theatre.  For  the  first  time 
he  felt  a  slight  twinge  of  homesickness.  Were  it 
not  for  one  person,  he  could  almost  wish  himself 
back  in  Philadelphia  and  at  home.  Except  for  one 
person  — . 

Somebody  had  approached  the  front  of  the  plat- 
form and  was  speaking  from  the  right  of  the  reading- 
desk.  Jarvis  never  learned  who  this  was,  or  indeed 
whether  it  was  the  first  speaker.  But  the  house  was 
applauding,  and  he  joined  in  the  cheers. 

The  cause  of  this  enthusiasm  was  a  tall,  spare  man, 
in  a  frock  coat,  who  looked  like  the  tenor  of  an  opera 
and  spoke  like  the  bass.  It  was  at  once  clear  that 
this  man  had  on  his  mind  the  knowledge  of  the  pre- 
destined class-battle,  but  it  was  equally  clear  that  he 
did  not  intend  to  mention  it.  Apparently  believing 
that  the  best  way  to  secure  his  ends  was  to  ignore 
actual  conditions,  he  merely  talked  of  quiet  and 
peace  in  terms  superbly  general,  and  the  applause 
that  constantly  interrupted  the  expression  of  his 
laudable  sentiments  rang  none  the  less  sincere  be- 


THE  BOY.  5 

cause  his  hearers  had  not  the  remotest  intention  of 
following  his  implied  advice. 

The  President  was  introduced.  His  quiet,  com- 
manding figure  and  generously  brief  words  of  honest 
welcome  were  acknowledged  with  an  increase  of 
appreciation,  but,  it  must  be  confessed,  in  the  mat- 
ter at  hand,  had  otherwise  precisely  the  same  degree 
of  effect. 

Another  and  another  spoke.  The  whole  calendar 
of  College  saints,  including  a  few  uncanonised  seniors, 
were,  at  one  time  or  another,  on  the  stage  and  every 
one  managed  to  overlook  impending  realities  while 
getting  in  some  strong  pleas  for  peace  in  the  abstract. 

But  to  overlook  impending  realities  was  no  longer 
an  easy  matter.  As  the  talk  flowed  gently  on,  Jarvis 
became  aware  of  a  certain  subdued  growling  sound  that 
occasionally  rose  to  a  single  shout  beneath  the  high 
windows  and  then  died  away  again  to  a  low  murmur 
of  discontent,  such  as  one  gets  from  a  conventional 
stage  mob. 

Nor  was  Jarvis  alone  in  noting  this.  It  was  soon 
evident  that  there  were  in  the  hall  others  with  ears 
quite  as  good  as  his.  Hardy,  he  saw,  was  leaning 
far  over  to  a  companion  two  seats  away  from  him 
and  was  evidently  speaking  with  considerable  excite- 
ment. His  hands  were  performing  a  rapid  series  of 
combative  gestures  and  his  eyes  were  afire  with  a 
delight  patently  not  inspired  by  the  eloquent  words 


6  JARVIS  OF  HARVARD. 

of  the  unobserved  person  who  was  then  addressing 
his  "friends  of  the  Class  of  '03." 

Indeed,  nobody  was  particularly  interested  in  that 
address.  The  tide  of  impatience  climbed  higher  and 
higher.  From  the  early  scraping  of  shoes  in  the  back 
aisles,  it  had  risen  to  the  confused  whisper  in  the  pit, 
and  was  now  seemingly  climbing  to  the  stage  itself. 
Throughout  the  house  boys  were  buttoning  up  their 
coats,  reaching  for  their  hats,  and  laying  fast  hold  of 
the  arms  of  their  chairs,  in  apparent  fear  that  the  im- 
pending explosion  would  hurl  them  through  the  walls 
of  Memorial.  In  the  rear,  one  or  two  were  already 
making  their  way  to  the  doors,  and  all  the  while  the 
noise  from  outside  continued  to  grow  in  volume  and 
in  portent. 

Children  have  been  known  to  prevent  a  panic  in  a 
school,  and  a  word  from  a  small  soubrette  has  quieted 
a  fire-affrighted  theatre,  but  it  would  require  the  full 
force  of  Napoleonic  measures  to  restrain  an  excited 
body  of  newly-made  college  men.  Evidently  the 
authorities  knew  this,  for,  whether  from  experience  or 
instinct,  academic  instructors  are  not  such  fools  as 
those  under  them  would  have  us  believe.  At  any 
rate,  the  man  who  was  speaking  in  this  case  stopped 
short  with  a  reminder  of  the  reception  that  was  about 
to  be  held  by  the  Faculty  in  the  other  wing  of  the 
building. 

It  was  like  the  announcement  of  the  concert  that 


THE  BOY.  / 

follows  the  modern  circus.  "  I  will  conclude,"  he 
said,  "  by  remarking,  in  conjunction  with  what  I  had 
begun  by  saying —  this  Yale  accusation  that  in  times 
past  we  have  had  to  send  to  England  for  a  man  to 
teach  us  to  row — that  we"  -he  was  not  of  the 
Faculty  —  "  need  only  reply  that  Yale  had  to  send  to 
Harvard  for  her  first  three  presidents  to  teach  her 
how  to  be  a  college." 

The  audience  had  completely  missed  the  connec- 
tion of  these  remarks  with  the  body  of  the  speech  to 
which  they  were  intended  to  serve  as  a  climax.  But 
the  sentiment  was  one  that  would,  of  itself,  have 
secured  applause,  even  had  it  not  come  as  a  message 
of  relief,  and  for  that  reason  the  whole  Freshman  class 
was  on  its  feet  and  open-mouthed. 

But,  before  a  hand  fell  or  a  voice  from  within  was 
raised,  there  came  from  the  street  a  sudden  deafening 
cannonade  of  voices : 

"  Rah,  rah,  rah !  Rah,  rah,  rah !  Rah,  rah,  rah ! 
Nineteen-two !  " 

The  cheer  was  given  in  unison.  It  was  the  signal 
that  the  big  mob  had  become  a  little  army;  it  was 
the  defiance  of  the  Sophomores. 

The  effect  was  instantaneous.  A  wild  cry,  half 
courtesy  to  the  speaker,  half  answer  to  the  still  echo- 
ing challenge,  shook  the  interior  of  the  theatre,  and 
the  next  moment  the  hundreds  were  crushing  into 
aisles  and  swarming  over  seats,  in  a  wild  endeavour  to 


8  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

pass  at  once  through  doors  that  gave  space  for  but 
ten  at  a  time. 

Jarvis  found  himself  carried  along  by  the  crowd 
and  struggling  with  the  best.  An  hour  before  he 
had  regarded  such  exhibitions  as  too  infantile ;  now 
he  simply  did  not  pause  to  reflect  at  all. 

"  Here,  you !  "  somebody  cried,  gripping  him  by 
the  coat-tail.  "  You  're  a  big  one.  Help  get  us 
out  first!  Somebody's  got  to  get  things  in  order, 
or  they'll  make  a  jelly  of  us*" 

Jarvis  cast  a  quick  glance  over  his  shoulder,  and 
saw  that  it  was  Hardy  and  his  friends  who  had 
thus  assailed  him. 

"  Oh,  it 's  you  !  "  cried  Hardy.  "  Well,  hurry  up. 
We  don't  want  to  rush  out  there  like  lobsters.  There, 
that  way !  There  you  go!  Down  in  front!  3-25— 
A-48  !  That 's  the  racket !  " 

Dodging  and  scrambling,  pushed  from  behind  and 
impeded  before,  Jarvis  found  himself  somehow  at  last 
down  the  steps  and  in  the  hallway.  Hardy  was  still 
at  his  back  and  only  two  of  the  other  members  of  the 
little  band  were  missing. 

For  his  own  part,  when  he  had  gone  to  the  theatre 
it  was  with  a  vague  desire  to  be  present  at  the  recep- 
tion and  meet  there,  in  however  formal  a  manner,  the 
men  whose  names  were  so  familiar  to  his  eye.  But 
at  this  time  there  was  nothing  undetermined  about 
his  desires.  He  wanted  to  get  out  of  those  doors 


THE  BOY.  9 

and  leap  into  whatever  tumult  was  raging  on  the 
other  side  of  them. 

This  seemed  to  be  the  ruling  passion  of  the  flushed 
crowd  about  him.  A  few  were  making  an  arduous 
way  across  the  lobby,  headed  for  the  peaceful  recep- 
tion, but  the  great  majority  wanted  to  do  battle,  and 
at  once. 

Hardy,  however,  would  not  have  it  so.  It  was  just 
the  moment  for  the  rise  of  a  great  leader  and  had 
this  short,  robust  youth  with  his  almost  feminine 
face,  fair  hair,  and  blue  eyes,  been  as  versed  in  the 
practical  psychology  of  mobs  as  Danton  himself, 
he  could  not  more  successfully  have  met  the 
occasion. 

"Oh,  fellows,  get  together!  Get  together!"  he 
cried,  dancing  across  the  doorway  with  arms  appeal- 
ingly  outspread ;  "  they  're  organised  out  there,  and 
we  won't  have  a  smell  at  the  cheese  if  we  go  at  it  a 
few  at  a  time  and  just  anyhow.  Listen  a  minute, 
listen !  " 

He  got  the  silence  he  asked,  or  enough,  at  any 
rate,  to  serve,  and  then,  with  a  glance  across  the 
street,  to  make  sure  of  his  data,  he  continued,  — 

"  They  're  in  the  street,  just  the  other  side  of  the 
car  track.  They  're  in  lines  of  about  fifty.  The  curb  's 
behind  the  front  row,  I  think,  an'  the  wire  fence  is 
hack  of  about  the  fifth  row.  It 's  not  more  than  a 
few  feet  high,  you  know,  and  the  entrance  by  the 


10  JARVIS  OF  HARVARD. 

Fogg  Art  Museum  's  rather  narrow.  If  we  rush  'em 
in  order,  we  can  trip  them  over  the  curb  and  then 
squeeze  them  against  the  fence.  Now,  go  out  about 
ten  at  a  time  and  run  right  for  the  middle.  Grab 
every  hat  you  can.  Yell  your  class  so 's  not  to  have 
your  own  men  against  you.  Try  to  force  your  way 
into  the  Yard.  We  want  to  get  there  and  keep  them 
out  till  we  're  tired  of  it,  —  or  drive  them  out  when 
they  follow  us,  if  we  can.  Look  out  for  those  steps 
and  for  the  wires  in  the  Yard.  Make  for  Holworthy. 
That's  at  this  end,  you  know.  Now  then,  fellows, 
nine  long  Rahs  and  Nineteen-three !  " 

His  hearers  had  been  falling  into  rude  ranks  as  he 
spoke,  and  when,  with  hands  and  voice  he  led  the 
cheer,  the  place  rang  again  with  their  response. 
Then  came  the  answer  of  the  Sophomores  across  the 
way,  and  the  sallying  party  rushed  out  to  battle. 

To  battle,  and,  as  it  seemed  at  first,  to  victory. 
The  advance  columns,  — in  one  of  which  Jarvis  breath- 
lessly found  himself,  —  came  down  the  steps  at  top 
speed.  By  a  miracle  nobody  fell,  and,  crossing  the 
street,  they  had  gained  a  terrible  momentum  by  the 
instant  they  struck  the  first  line  of  Sophomores, 
drawn  up  with  care,  but  expecting  no  organised 
resistance. 

The  crash  was  terrific.  According  to  tradition, 
every  one  was  using  his  arms,  and  wasting  no  energy 
on  his  fists,  so  that  the  whole  weight  of  each  single 


THE  BOY.  II 

body  was  propelled  against  the  opposing  line.  For 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye  the  enemy  wavered.  Before 
they  could  rally,  the  second  and  the  third  columns 
had  swept  down  and,  the  whole  attack  being  con- 
centrated upon  one  point,  those  who  composed  the 
line  that  had  directly  faced  it,  were  either  pushed 
aside,  or  thrown  on  their  backs  upon  the  curb. 
Slowly,  yet  with  tremendous  force,  the  mass  of  Fresh- 
men struggled  toward  the  entrance  through  which 
they  hoped  to  gain  the  Yard. 

But  here  they  came  to  a  standstill.  The  Sopho- 
mores had  been  wise  enough  especially  to  protect 
this  point,  and  for  a  time  it  appeared  that  no  headway 
was  to  be  made.  Nor  was  that  all.  Jarvis  caught  sight 
of  a  new  danger  and  the  arm  of  the  excited  Hardy  at 
one  and  the  same  instant. 

"  Look  ! "  he  yelled,  putting  his  mouth  close  to  the 
St.  Paul's  boy's  ear.  "  Their  long  line 's  closing 
around  us  from  the  back !  " 

For  Hardy  one  glance  was  sufficient.  There  was 
no  time  to  lose. 

"  I  know  what  to  do ! "  he  shouted,  in  answer. 
"  Here,  you,  and  you,  and  you  !  " 

He  was  clutching  several  of  the  Freshmen  nearest 
to  hand  and  by  a  series  of  signs  (where  his  voice 
failed)  was  ordering  them  to  follow  him. 

Probably  because,  even  in  that  dim  light,  he  was 
recognised  as  the  planner  of  the  original  attack,  he 


12  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

got  some  twenty  to  obey  him,  and  between  them  they 
managed  to  get  clear  of  the  crowd,  and  work  their 
way  into  the  open  street  a  few  rods  to  the  west. 

"  Now,"  he  said,  "  there 's  a  gate  here  behind 
Hoi  worthy.  We'll  go  through  there  and  around 
back  of  Fogg.  Then  we  '11  catch  'em  in  the  rear  and 
open  up  the  way.  Go  quick  till  you  get  there.  Stop 
when  I  do.  Then  form  a  V,  and  at  'em  hard  and  all 
together  from  the  rear.  Yell  your  class  when  you 
strike,  but  not  a  word  before ! " 

His  plan  was  carried  out  to  the  letter.  They  re- 
treated half  way  up  the  board  walk  to  Sever,  formed 
in  two  lines,  which  met  with  Jarvis  as  the  head,  and 
then,  with  arms  tight  about  each  other's  shoulders, 
came  thundering  down  upon  the  Sophomores'  rear. 

Some  had  heard  them  coming  and  turned  to  resist. 
They  were  brushed  aside  without  pause,  and  only 
weakened  the  strength  of  the  wall  the  V  was  aimed  to 
strike. 

"  Heads  down !  "  cried  Hardy.     "  Nineteen-three  !  " 

There  was  another  horrible  shock.  Jarvis'  head 
struck  some  one  in  the  stomach,  and  that  stomach 
seemed  to  vanish  before  him  as  the  paper  in  the  hoop 
before  the  circus  rider.  Another  and  another  con- 
cussion followed,  and  all  at  once  he  found  that  the 
man  next  ahead  was  calling  "  Nineteen-three !  "  and, 
turning  about,  he  followed  Hardy  in  the  now  open 
way  to  the  Yard. 


THE  BOY  13 

Nevertheless,  he  was  not  a  little  dazed,  and  as  to 
what  immediately  followed  he  was  never  afterward 
particularly  clear. 

They  had  formed  again  in  front  of  Holworthy  and 
the  Sophomores  had  shortly  followed,  sweeping 
around  from  behind  Thayer,  whence  they  rushed  en 
masse  upon  the  advancing  Freshmen. 

In  a  minute  nearly  all  the  few  lights  had  been 
extinguished  and  the  swirling  clouds  of  men  were 
hopelessly  intermixed.  The  only  way  to  identify 
oneself  was  to  cry  the  year  of  one's  class  and  strike 
blindly,  but  open  handed,  at  any  who  cried  otherwise. 

Vain  were  the  attempts  of  overzealous  instructors 
to  quell  the  disturbance.  They  got  no  further  than 
the  outskirts ;  they  were  well  jostled  for  their  pains, 
and  generally  ended  by  going  the  way  of  all  peace- 
makers. From  the  steps  of  Univerity,  Seniors 
cheered  on  the  Sophomores,  while  the  Juniors  did 
as  much  for  the  Freshmen.  The  tide  of  battle  rolled 
from  Holworthy  to  Gray's  and  from  Thayer  to 
Matthews'.  Many  an  upper  classman  found  the  temp- 
tation too  much  for  him,  and  rushed  into  the  fray. 
Here  and  there  little  knots  of  Freshmen  would  break 
out  from  the  twisting  mass  and  form  again,  but  gen- 
erally it  was  a  battle  of  every  man  for  himself. 

Yet,  up  to  a  certain  point,  it  was  a  good-natured 
fight,  and  the  method  of  war  consisted  for  the  most 
part  only  of  pushing  an  enemy  over  the  low  wires 


14  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD 

that  everywhere  intersect  the  turf  and  mark  out  the 
paths.  Soon,  however,  the  arena  became  so  deep 
a  slough  that  to  be  thrown  into  the  mud  was  no 
pleasant  experience.  Coats  and  hats  were  torn  off, 
and  so  the  battle  raged  for  two  hours. 

Most  "  Bloody  Mondays "  have  ended  only  with 
the  harmless  exhaustion  of  both  sides,  when  each 
marches  off  proclaiming  itself  the  victor,  and  that, 
no  doubt,  would  have  been  the  climax  of  this  one, 
had  not  a  persuasive  instructor,  by  some  phenome- 
non, caught  the  combined  attention  of  the  mob  and 
begun  a  sermon  from  the  porch  of  Matthews  just 
in  front  of  the  last  lamp-post  to  bear  a  light. 

Every  one  had  stopped,  glad  of  a  chance  to  rest, 
but  the  instructor,  to  do  him  justice,  did  not  say 
much.  He  knew  his  audience  better,  perhaps,  than 
most  instructors.  They  had  had  their  fun,  and  no 
serious  harm  had  been  done.  But  now  they  had 
better  go  home.  It  was  late  and  an  affair  of  this 
kind,  prolonged  to  too  great  an  extent,  was  almost 
sure  to  result  in  some  injury  or  other  grave  trouble. 

The  speaker  paused.  Perhaps  he  intended  to  stop 
altogether.  Jarvis  never  knew,  for  just  then  a  Sopho- 
more directly  in  front  of  him  had  evidently  reached 
that  conclusion,  and  turned  about  with  a  wild  whoop 
and  a  flourish  of  arms  that  brought  one  hand  in 
sounding  contact  with  the  Freshman's  cheek. 

They  were  in  the  full  light  of  the  lamp  and   all 


THE   BOY.  15 

those  about  had  seen  or  heard  enough  to  make  it 
incumbent  upon  Jarvis  to  reply.  He  looked  at  the 
offender,  a  tall  but  slim  lad  with  sandy  hair  and 
brown  eyes  of  battle.  Then  he  recollected  his  own 
broad  shoulders,  his  six  feet  of  height  and  his  hun- 
dred and  eighty  pounds.  But  the  crowd  had  closed 
in  about  them  and  the  instructor,  the  ultimate  sym- 
bol of  law  and  order,  had  wisely  disappeared.  Then 
some  one  shouted : 

"  Give  it  to  him,  Naught-three !  " 

And  that  settled  matters. 

The  Sophomore  looked  as  if  he  had  never  had  a 
coat  and  that  of  Jarvis  was  off  in  an  instant. 

The  Freshman  did  not  know  how  to  box,  but  both 
the  principals  knew  how  to  fight.  Jarvis  led  with 
his  right  for  his  opponent's  face.  It  was  a  hard 
blow,  and  when  the  Sophomore  dodged,  Jarvis 
pitched  heavily  forward.  As  he  tottered  his  enemy 
landed  a  strong  left  on  his  head,  and  that  sent  him 
at  once  to  the  ground.  Evidently  his  opponent  had 
used  his  fists  before. 

The  two  elements  of  the  crowd  were  now  crying 
their  favourites,  but  no  one  attempted  to  interfere  and 
a  fairly  precise  ring  had  been  preserved. 

Mad  with  shame  and  anger,  Jarvis  sprang  to  his 
feet  and  rushed  headlong.  But  he  had  sufficient  wit 
not  to  clinch,  and,  though  two  of  his  blows  went  wild 
and  another  was  skilfully  warded,  the  fourth  landed 


16  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

heavily  on  the  Sophomore's  ribs.  The  latter  had 
kept  up  a  series  of  short  "jabs"  in  the  chest  and 
back,  but  neither  was  much  the  worse  when  both 
paused  for  breath. 

Then,  in  an  instant,  it  was  over.  The  Sophomore 
advanced  with  his  former  caution  and  a  wild  flurry  of 
feints.  In  pure  desperation,  Jarvis  drove  full  from 
the  shoulder.  His  fist  rang  against  his  enemy's  jaw 
and  the  Sophomore  fell  hard  and  lay  quiet. 

Of  course  Jarvis  thought  he  was  killed  and  of 
course  he  was  not.  The  classmates  of  each  closed 
about  their  champion  to  revive  or  congratulate,  and 
presently  the  vanquished  emerged  from  among  his 
friends  and  walked  up  to  Jarvis  with  outstretched 
hand. 

"  I  'm  licked,"  he  said.  "  I  had  n't  any  business  to 
fight,  for  I  thought  I  had  you  at  the  start  —  and,  any- 
how, it 's  rather  absurd." 

Jarvis  admitted,  with  some  embarrassment,  that 
it  was. 

"  But  it  was  all  luck  with  me,"  he  added 
inconclusively. 

"  Perhaps,"  was  the  answer,  "  but  it  served.  Only 
really,  you  ought  to  take  lessons.  You  're  awfully 
clumsy  with  your  fists." 


CHAPTER  II. 
THE   SHIRT   OF   NESSUS. 

JARVIS  started  back  to  his  room  in  a  state  of  exul- 
tation that  was  completely  novel  to  him.  He  had 
rarely  before  had  the  chance  of  testing  his  splendid 
strength.  In  spite  of  a  bookish  tinge  to  his  nature, 
he  was  not  above  enjoying  the  lesser  follies  of  boys 
of  his  age,  and  purely  physical  weariness  induced  a 
certain  mental  exhilaration.  He  had  lost  his  hat 
early  in  the  scrimmage ;  he  had  forgotten  to  recover 
his  coat  when  he  finally  managed  to  escape  the 
admiration  of  his  supporters  in  his  fistic  encounter. 
He  had  had  his  turn  to  sprawl  in  the  mud,  and  he 
was  now  returning  to  his  quarters  in  a  pelting  rain. 
But  he  recollected  how  man  after  man  had  gone  down 
before  his  enthusiastic  onslaughts,  and  he  was  delight- 
fully tired  and  buoyant. 

Perhaps  it  was  an  effect  of  this  that,  upon  opening 
his  door  at  Claverly,  he  could,  for  the  first  time,  look 
upon  the  place  as  home.  The  study  to  which  he 
entered  bespoke  a  wild  day's  shopping,  made  with  a 
long  purse  and  from  that  point  of  view  which  comes 
to  one  only  for  the  brief  early  years  at  college. 


1 8  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

Judged  by  this  standard,  the  place  should  have  been 
comfortable,  not  to  say  luxurious.  It  was  crowded 
with  a  lot  of  lumber  that  he  regarded  as  artistic.  The 
heavy  furniture  almost  overflowed  the  window-seats 
into  Mount  Auburn  Street.  Morris  chairs,  a  desk,  a 
tea  table,  all  the  accoutrements,  necessary  and  other- 
wise, that  go  to  make  the  modern  college  man's 
apartments,  crowded  the  centre  of  the  room.  The 
walls  were  lined  with  book  shelves  on  which  predom- 
inated the  handsome  bindings  of  a  literature  not 
generally  in  circulation  with  the  Young  Person  —  a 
sign  whereby  Jarvis  hoped  to  display  his  liberality. 
Oriental  rugs  covered  the  floor  and  Eastern  arms  and 
fans,  with  one  or  two  very  fair  reproductions  of  the 
old  masters  and  some  flaring  posters,  served  to  fill  up 
the  remaining  space  between  floor  and  ceiling.  A 
profusion  of  plaster  casts  of  more  or  less  merit  crowded 
what  corners  were  left.  At  one  side  of  the  big  fire- 
place, above  the  gleaming  andirons,  a  death-mask  of 
Voltaire  leered  across  at  a  crucifix,  and  beside  a 
green-mounted  Madonna  of  the  Chair,  a  ballet-dancer 
done  in  water-colours,  poised  awkwardly  on  one  foot. 
The  whole  place  abounded  in  glaring  contrasts,  due, 
one  felt,  to  a  mental  commotion,  more  distorted  per- 
haps than  normal,  on  the  part  of  the  owner. 

In  just  what  direction  that  commotion  tended  was 
shortly  evident.  Jarvis  at  once  picked  up'  the  letters 
that  had  been  delivered  during  his  absence  since  five 


THE  SHIRT  OF  NESSUS.  l£ 

o'clock  and,  with  nervous  fingers,  ran  through  them 
until  he  found  the  one  that  he  had  trembled  for.  He 
got  it  soon  enough  from  among  a  score  of  bills  and 
postal-cards  offering  the  services  of  tutors  in  a  dozen 
subjects,  —  a  square  blue  envelope,  addressed  in  a 
clear,  firm  hand,  and  exhaling,  he  almost  fancied,  just 
a  breath  of  the  perfume  he  so  associated  with  her. 
But  his  hurry  was  over  in  a  moment,  and  he  leaned 
wearily  against  the  mantelpiece  turning  the  letter 
over  and  over  in  his  hands. 

The  fire — the  only  light  in  the  room  —  left  the 
sturdy  outlines  of  his  figure  in  darkness,  but  blazed 
full  upon  the  healthy,  flushed  face.  It  was  a  rather 
handsome  face  —  at  any  rate  one  that  forced  a 
second  glance  — and  showed  to  all  the  better  advan- 
tage now  that  the  rich  brown  hair,  usually  so  severely 
brushed  to  one  side,  had  matted  low  on  the  broad 
forehead  and  asserted  to  the  full  its  tendency  to 
curl.  The  eyes  were  bright,  but  so  dark  a  brown 
that  one  would  almost  have  called  them  black  had 
not  the  straight  brows  and  long  lashes  been  deep 
enough  to  give  them  their  true  value.  The  nose, 
too,  was  strong,  but  the  mouth  was  almost  feminine 
in  its  bow,  and  the  curve  of  the  chin  was  not  with- 
out its  warning  of  weakness.  The  shadowy  contour 
of  his  body  was  that  of  physical  perfection,  but  the 
face  was  the  face  of  a  boy  with  the  brow  of  a  man, 
all  unconscious  of  the  terrible  odds  against  it. 


2O  JARVIS  OF  HARVARD. 

He  looked  at  the  envelope  again  and  again,  but  he 
could  not  bring  himself  to  open  it  and,  instead,  the 
whole  miserable  course  of  events  of  which  this  letter 
was  significant  dragged  their  weary  length  before  his 
mental  vision. 

He  had  been  brought  up  at  his  own  home  by  rich 
parents,  among  a  host  of  indulgent  relatives.  There 
he  had  been  trained  by  tutors  up  to  the  day  last 
spring  on  which  he  took  his  entrance  examinations. 
He  had  scarcely  ever  been  separated  from  his  parents, 
and  had  thus  failed  to  get  the  greatest  benefit  obtain- 
able from  a  boarding-school  —  the  toughening  of  the 
moral  hide,  the  stability  which,  if  it  is  not  knowledge 
of  the  world,  is  at  least  strength  to  bear  that  knowl- 
edge. The  requisite  Greek  and  Latin  for  his  exami- 
nations he  certainly  had  acquired ;  tact  and  the 
passive  power  of  adapting  himself  to  his  surroundings 
he  inherited.  At  a  very  early  age  —  almost  too  early 
for  real  promise  —  he  had  shown  literary  tastes  that 
had  developed  themselves  rather  than  been  developed 
into  a  certain  talent.  He  wrote  pretty  verse  with  an 
ease  and  grace  that  perhaps  rightly  surprised  the  fond 
parents  who  were  only  too  ready  thus  to  be  moved. 
His  work  was  naturally  wholly  imitative,  because  he 
had  no  fund  of  experience  or  sensation  to  draw  upon ; 
but  he  imitated  so  cleverly  that  his  relatives  were 
deluded  into  mistaking  the  adaptation  for  the  original. 

Yet,  with  all  this,  his  soul  was  a  blank  page.     Of 


THE   SHIRT  OF  NESSUS.  21 

emotion,  beyond  the  homely  affections  which  go  for 
nothing  in  the  development  of  the  artistic  temperament, 
he  knew  nothing.  Such  domestic  attachments  are 
merely  the  water-wash  which  the  colourist  puts  upon 
his  paper  that  the  tints  of  his  sky  or  sea  may  be  more 
brilliant.  Of  the  passionate  sunsets  and  pale  dawns 
of  life  that  were  to  come,  Jarvis  stood  in  complete 
ignorance.  Book-read  beyond  his  age,  too,  he  had 
not,  since  early  childhood,  been  spiritually  close  to 
either  his  father  or  his  mother.  The  former,  a  Phila- 
delphia man  of  business  and  nothing  more,  had  at 
first  admired  and  then  come  to  stand  rather  in  awe  of 
this  mind  for  the  existence  of  which  he  was  respons 
ible.  Thoroughly  good  and  almost  foolishly  indul- 
gent, he  was  of  a  mental  fibre  hopelessly  coarser  than 
that  of  the  boy,  and  Dick  felt  the  moral  wall  that 
separated  them  none  the  less  precisely  although  he 
could  not  understand  its  material.  The  lad's  mother, 
on  the  other  hand,  though  passionately  devoted  to 
her  son,  was,  like  many  other  mothers  with  a  gift  for 
devotion,  even  more  passionately  devoted  to  the 
formalities  of  social  life  which  her  position  enjoined ; 
and  it  was  only  when,  after  some  prolonged  season 
of  gaieties,  she  realised  that  she  had  been  neglect- 
ing Dick,  that  she  would  become  hysterically  demon- 
strative over  him. 

The  boy  generally  hated  his  tutors  because  they 
were  the  outward  and  visible  sign  of  the  force  that 


22  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

kept  him  from  the  haven  of  his  hopes  —  a  boarding- 
school.  This  one  gift  was  never  granted  him  and, 
as  with  us  all,  the  one  gift  denied  became  the  only 
desire  of  his  heart.  But,  although  she  managed  to 
leave  him  with  a  regularity  that  was  convincingly 
consistent,  his  mother,  with  all  the  obstinate  selfish- 
ness of  affection,  firmly  declared  she  could  not  have 
him  leave  her  until  he  went  to  College. 

Mentally,  however,  the  lad  was  very  much  alone, 
and  once  alone  had  free  access  to  the  large  library 
of  his  maternal  grandfather,  which  had  rested  un- 
touched during  the  interregnum  in  the  Jarvis  house- 
hold following  the  death  of  old  Geoffrey  Cooke 
and  lasting  until  the  advent  of  Richard  Jarvis,  2nd. 
Dick  made  good,  or  rather  free,  use  of  the  shelves 
that  were  otherwise  untouched  except  for  the  dusters 
of  conscientious  housemaids,  and  read  much  that  was 
good  for  his  taste  and  bad  for  his  soul.  Endowed  — 
or  cursed — with  a  wonderfully  vivid  imagination,  as 
many  another  child  has  done,  he  lived  within  him- 
self the  stories  that  he  read.  At  first  he  was 
David  skulking  among  the  mountain  caves  of  Adul- 
lam ;  Cicero  hurling  his  denunciations  —  in  English 
—  against  Catiline  or  defending  Archias ;  King  Henry 
urging  on  his  British  yeomen  at  Harfleur;  Montrose, 
the  Young  Chevalier,  or  Napoleon.  Then  he  became 
by  turns  Rizzio,  writing  sonnets  to  the  scarlet  puppet 
ofJohnKnox;  the  self-abasing  Aboard;  the  aveng- 


THE   SHIRT    OF   NESSUS.  23 

ing  Rimini ;  or  else  he  was  crying  to  the  Alastor  of 
his  solitude  to  make  the  world  her  Actium,  him  her 
Antony. 

When,  rather  late,  he  outgrew  these  child-dreams, 
he  came  gradually  but  none  the  less  surely,  to  realise 
the  emptiness  of  his  life.  He  saw  that  the  artist  must 
reproduce,  and  that  if  he  had  no  impressions  of  his 
own  to  present,  he  could  only  imitate  those  of  his 
masters.  He  told  himself  that  a  man  might  be  a 
fool  for  giving  way  to  his  passions,  but  that  he 
would  certainly  be  a  fool  if  he  had  no  passions  to 
give  way  to.  The  greater  the  soul,  he  reasoned,  the 
greater  the  temptations.  Why  should  he  cheat  his 
heart  and  God-given  strength  of  their  fire?  Youth 
boiled  in  his  veins,  beat  in  his  pulses,  hammered 
at  his  breast.  He  would  imprison  it  no  longer. 
He  would  not  starve  his  soul  and  grow  old  before 
he  had  been  young. 

And  then  She  came.  The  pure  delight  of  her, 
could  he  ever  forget  it?  They  had  met  at  Bar 
Harbor,  she  fresh  from  her  schooling  abroad.  As 
a  child  he  had  known  her  for  his  neighbour  and 
playmate.  Now  she  was  a  woman  and  beautiful, 
but  he  never  thought  of  that.  What  he  entirely 
lost  himself  in  was  the  charm  of  contact  with  a 
nature  that  seemed  the  counterpart  of  his  own.  He 
could  not  fail  to  perceive  the  social  distinctions  that 
increasing  years  had  created.  Childhood,  like  love, 


24  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

may  know  no  caste ;  but  even  in  his  present  concfr 
tion  it  was  impossible  to  be  blind  to  the  fact  that  the 
Braddocks,  rich,  amiable  and  intellectual  though  they 
might  be,  were,  by  the  rigid  Philadelphia  code,  quite 
outside  his  peculiar  set.  Yet  even  the  strong  bonds 
of  heredity  and  environment  —  the  stronger,  perhaps, 
because  irrational — could  not  restrain  the  ego  in 

o 

him  that  had  gone  mad  with  its  strength.  In  a 
moment  he  had  shaken  off  the  trammels  of  his 
former  existence.  He  was  an  entity,  an  individu- 
ality, a  soul  entering  upon  its  battle  with  multitudi- 
nous life. 

Then,  of  a  sudden,  he  had  learned  the  graver 
reason  that  divided  them,  the  reason  which,  right 
or  wrong,  obtains  above  all  local  definitions  and 
distinctions.  And  he  had  learned  it  only  to  learn, 
at  the  same  time,  his  own  weakness.  He  was  no 
Odysseus  to  stop  his  ears  against  the  siren's  song. 

His  morbid  imagination  had  pictured  this  cata- 
strophe as  the  ruin  of  his  whole  life.  He  had  come 
to  Cambridge  in  a  dream.  But  there  had  followed 
no  word  from  her,  and  he  began  to  have  a  vague 
hope  of  rehabilitation.  Yet,  so  strong  was  her  power 
over  him,  that  he  dreaded  the  sight  of  a  letter  from 
her  hand  with  an  alarm  of  which  he  could  not  pre- 
viously have  thought  himself  capable.  He  longed 
with  all  his  boy's  heart  for  some  friend,  some  coun- 
sellor, however  fallible.  With  growing  hope  and 


THE    SHIRT   OF   NESSUS.  25 

terror  he  looked  for  the  letter  every  day.  And 
now  it  had  come. 

Again  he  turned  it  over  in  his  hand.  What  was 
he  to  do?  How  was  he  to  reply?  He  was  so  alone ! 
If  only  there  was  any  one  to  ask ! 

Almost .  as  if  in  answer  to  the  wish,  there  was,  a 
sudden  ring  at  his  bell,  and  a  moment  later  Hardy, 
mud  from  top  to  toe,  had  divested  himself  of  nearly 
all  the  few  clothes  left  him  by  the  "  rush,"  and  flung 
himself  into  one  of  the  great  armchairs  at  one  side 
of  the  fire. 

"  Give  me  some  tobacco  !  Was  n't  it  splendid  ? 
They  were  easy,  easy,  easy !  "  he  cried  all  in  a  breath. 

For  the  instant  Jarvis  felt  like  sending  him  away, 
but  he  made  a  determined  effort  to  adopt  the  other's 
mood. 

"  It  was  splendid,"  he  conceded.  "  Here 's  some 
tobacco.  Shall  I  light  the  lamp?" 

"  No,  this  is  ripping.  Let  things  as  they  are.  I 
just  could  n't  go  to  sleep  for  hours  yet,  so  I  stopped 
in  to  talk." 

There  was  a  minute's  silence.  From  the  floor 
below  there  came  through  the  quiet  night  the  sound 
of  a  piano.  Somebody  was  playing  the  "  Traume  " 
of  Wagner  and  the  low  strains,  so  subtle  for  the  inter- 
pretation of  our  highest  and  lowest  selves,  crept  into 
and  filled  the  room.  From  the  fire  one  particular 
flame  played  a  steady  light  upon  Hardy.  Jarvis 


26  JARVIS  OF   HARVARD. 

regarded  him,  puffing  at  his  pipe,  In  the  strong, 
frank  face  there  was  much  to  invite.  It  struck  Jarvis, 
too,  that  this  young  fellow  with  his  hardy  school 
training,  his  friends  and  his  way,  as  it  seemed, 
already  made,  stood  for  everything  that  the  more 
lonely  boy  had  missed. 

"  Hardy,"  he  said  at  last. 

"  Yes  ?  " 

"  We  used  to  know  each  other  pretty  well  in 
Philadelphia  before  you  went  away  to  school.  That 's 
why  I  'm  talking  to  you  now.  I  'm  going  to  tell  you 
something  about  myself  and  ask  your  advice." 


CHAPTER  III. 
TRAUME. 

To  the  mind  of  the  young  Undergraduate  there  is 
no  horror  quite  so  faithfully  to  be  avoided  as  a  scene. 
Hardy,  to  whom  Jarvis'  tone  had  left  small  room  for 
speculation,  no  doubt  felt  to  the  full  the  unpleasant- 
ness of  the  situation,  but  if  so,  he  was,  in  changing  his 
mood,  as  much  the  gentleman  as  the  other,  and  only 
grunted  an  inarticulate  assent  as  he  inwardly  thanked 
his  stars  that  the  lamp  was  out. 

Both  fellows  refilled  their  pipes  and  then  Jarvis 
began,  — 

"  I  suppose  it's  a  queer  sort  of  thing  on  my  part," 
he  said.  "  I  've  never  done  anything  of  the  sort 
before,  but  the  matter  has  come  to  such  a  point  that 
I  Ve  just  got  to  ask  somebody's  advice." 

"  I  don't  see  how  I  'm  qualified,"  Hardy  hopefully 
suggested. 

"  You  're  the  only  person  I  can  talk  to  around  here, 
anyhow,  and  I  must  at  least  talk  it  over  with  some  one. 
It 's  —  it 's  about  a  woman." 

"  Then  I  know  I  'm  not  qualified." 


28  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

"  Well,  we  '11  see.  I  shan't  mention  names,  of 
course." 

Hesitatingly  at  the  start,  but  gradually  with 
growing  feeling  and  eloquence,  he  made  clear  his 
situation. 

"  It  was  the  very  night  before  I  came  up  here."  he 
went  on.  "  I  '11  never  forget  the  picture.  The  dim, 
red  light  of  the  piano  lamp  cast  such  strange  shifting 
shadows  over  her  lithe  figure  as  she  played.  The 
whole  room  was  shaded  in  a  soft  kind  of  rosy  twilight, 
except  for  the  glaring  white  keyboard  of  the  piano 
and  —  the  girl  and  for  me  beside  her.  She  seemed 
to  melt  right  into  the  whole  quiet  harmony  of  it. 
Her  movements  were  all  so  slow  and  graceful.  She 
put  herself  into  the  music  —  even  into  the  keys.  One 
minute  she  'd  be  pulsing  with  the  air  and  the  next  the 
air  would  be  quickened  just  as  if  by  the  life  in  her. 
She  has  a  way  —  a  lingering  sort  of  touch  —  that 
gave  a  melancholy  expression  to  it  all. 

"Well,  you  know  how  quick  innocence  is  in  its 
perception  of  vice.  I  understood,  from  her  own  lips, 
exactly  what  her  mistake  had  been.  But  she  seemed 
to  love  me  and  so  long  as  it  was  possible  —  and  that 
was  to  be  so  short  a  time  —  I  could  n't  stay  away.  I 
knew  perfectly  well  what  would  result,  but  —  well, 
there  I  was. 

"  I  watched  her,  and  watched  her,  and  watched  her. 
The  spell  was  so  perfect,  I  hardly  dared  to  speak.  I 


TRAUME.  29 

may  have  thought  I'd  break  the  artistic  charm,  or 
may  be  the  subconscious  devil  that  hides  in  us  all 
made  me  keep  my  mouth  shut  when  stillness  was 
worse  than  words.  I  don't  know.  Anyhow,  when 
she  stopped  the  music  died  away  so  languorously 
that  the  pause  was  intoxicating.  I  remember  one  of 
her  hands  was  resting  on  the  echoing  keys.  Her 
whole  body  was  motionless  and  yet  so  vibrant  with 
life  that  when,  all  at  once,  she  laughed,  I  felt  as  if 
some  one  had  cursed  in  a  church. 

"  I  don't  know  what  we  talked  about  It  all  meant 
a  good  deal  more  than  the  words.  But  it  came  out 
that  by  some  mistake  she  had  thought  I  was  n't  to 
leave  until  the  next  week,  instead  of  the  next  day. 
She  put  out  her  hand  to  me.  It  was  like  a  gleam  of 
white  lightning.  I  'd  never  talked  love  to  her.  It  was 
the  first  time  in  my  life  I  'd  ever  even  held  a  woman's 
hand  in  that  way  and  I  remembered  seeing  people  do 
that  sort  of  thing  in  Rittenhouse  Square,  so  I  dropped 
it  and  asked  her  to  sing. 

"  Everything  might  have  been  different  if  it  had  n't 
been  for  that.  She  picked  ,up  the  '  Traume '  ot 
Wagner  —  the  very  thing  that  fellow  downstairs  is 
playing.  Well,  she'd  arranged  the  music  to  some 
foolish  words  I  'd  written.  Listen  !  " 

He  held  up  a  warning  finger  and  again  the  low 
sweet  sound  flooded  the  room.  Hardy  was  looking 
steadily  at  the  fire,  his  face  between  his  hands.  He 


30  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

did  not  move  as  the  strange  strains  rose  and  fell  like 
the  quiet  waves  along  the  shore  of  some  pure  island 
Paradise  —  or  was  it  on  some  reef  of  Circe? 

"  Listen,"  repeated  Jarvis,  and  the  music  seemed 
to  respond  to  his  very  words.  "  What  does  that  say 
to  you  ?  People  tell  you  that  it  expresses  the  high- 
est and  purest  sort  of  love  —  something  so  high  and 
splendid  that  it  is  above  the  best  of  us.  They  say  it 
is  the  only  clear  human  conception  ever  achieved  of 
a  love  between  man  and  woman  that  is  like  the  love 
of  God.  Is  it?  For  they  add  that,  sung  with  other 
words,  or  with  the  very  slightest  and  subtlest  change 
in  the  manner  or  even  soul  of  the  singer,  it  can  mean 
everything  that  is  seductive  to  the  most  splendid 
voluptuousness,  as  nothing  else  ever  wrought  by  man 
has  ever  meant  it.  Well,  that's  what  it  meant  to 
me." 

He  paused  again  and  the  music  sank  to  a  low  wail- 
ing echo,  like  the  sob  of  a  lost  soul  that  was  cringing 
in  some  dark  corner  of  that  very  room. 

"She  had  a  wonderful  soft  contralto  voice,"  he 
continued.  "  The  minute  she  began  to  sing  I  saw 
clearer  than  ever  before  just  what  the  situation  meant. 
Race  instinct  —  I  suppose  it  was  —  knocked  over  all 
my  theories  of  right  and  wrong,  but  I  was  helpless. 
I  just  looked  into  the  grave  of  everything  —  power- 
less. Then  I  leaned  over  to  turn  the  page  and  —  her 
hair  brushed  my  cheek. 


TRAUME.  31 

"Next  day  I  came  up  here.  The  governor  'd 
arranged  for  the  rooms,  but  I  lived  in  them  at  first  as 
if  they  were  three  rooms  in  a  hotel.  I  did  n't  even 
unpack  my  trunks.  I  simply  could  n't  take  in  the 
situation.  No  word  came  from  her  and  then  at  last 
I  began  to  see  that  I  might  start  fresh  if  she  'd  only 
let  me  alone.  To-night,"  and  he  held  up  the  blue 
envelope,  "  this  letter  came." 

There  was  another  silence.  Hardy  took  two  long 
pulls  at  his  pipe. 

"  Well  ?  "  he  said  at  last. 

"  What  shall  I  do  ?  "  asked  Jarvis.  "  If  I  open  it, 
I'm  afraid  —  You  understand.  The  only  question  is 
whether  I  Ve  a  right  to  throw  it  into  the  fire." 

"And  you  left  her  as  you  found  her." 

"  I  think  the  sin  was  mine.  With  her  it  was  com- 
mitted so  long  before.  I  left  her  no  worse,  I  should 
say." 

"Then  don't  be  a  fool.  Read  the  letter,  by  all 
means.  Then  write  an  answer,  letting  her  know  as 
decently  as  you  can,  that  the  thing  must  end. 
You've  only  one  course  to  follow,  —  the  course  of 
a  gentleman.  I  don't  see  why  you  thought  you 
needed  anybody's  advice." 

"But  how  can  I  tell  her?" 

"  I  leave  that  to  your  instincts.  You  Ve  got  every- 
thing to  gain  or  lose  —  and  there  are  your  parents  to 
remember." 


32  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

"  Then  — I  '11  think  it  over." 

"  Oh,  certainly !  And  do  just  what  you  would 
have  done  without  me.  At  any  rate,  that's  my 
advice  first  and  last.  What  time  is  it?  Four? 
Wonder  the  proctor  did  n't  jump  that  musician.  I  'm 
going  to  bed." 

He  made  for  the  door  with  a  determination  of 
manner  sufficient  to  convince  an  ignorant  onlooker 
that  his  couch  had  been  moved  just  into  Jarvis'  hall. 
Midway,  however,  he  checked  himself  and,  wheeling- 
round,  came  back  to  the  fire-place  with  outstretched 
hand. 

Jarvis  met  him  in  silence  and,  as  the  door  banged 
upon  Hardy's  full  flight,  threw  himself  into  his  chair 
again. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
THE   ETERNAL   MASCULINE. 

"  PERHAPS,  my  beloved,"  said  Martin  Luther,  as  he 
stood  with  his  wife  beside  the  dead  body  of  his  only 
daughter,  "  perhaps  it  is  better  thus.  The  world  is 
a  hard  place  for  girls."  Jarvis  remembered  the  words. 
The  years,  he  reflected,  have  not  altered  the  truth 
of  what  the  great  reformer  said.  We  sin  and  the 
woman  pays.  We  succeed  and  the  glory  is  ours ; 
we  fall  and  the  shame  is  hers.  As  poor  Inez  wrote 
her  recreant  lover,  we  have  the  sword  or  the  mart  to 
help  us  to  forget,  but  woman,  as  Nansen  told  his  wife, 
must  prove  her  courage  by  staying  at  home.  It  is 
a  hard  world  for  girls. 

Heretofore  the  great  change  to  a  new  life  had 
served  to  check,  in  a  measure,  all  of  Jarvis'  attempts 
at  ordered  consideration  of  the  recent  past.  As  the 
physical  reaction  from  his  unwonted  exertions  in 
the  Yard  set  in  upon  him,  a  profound  pity  for  the 
woman,  an  intense  loathing  of  himself  and  a  sickening 
horror  of  hopelessness  and  despair  swept  down  all 
of  Hardy's  easily  reared  bulwarks,  and  crushed  Jarvis 
into  his  chair.  The  terrible  sense  of  something  lost 

3 


34  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

and  forever  gone  from  him,  of  some  ethereal  and 
eternal  attribute  carelessly  thrown  away,  stunned 
every  other  faculty  save  that  for  suffering.  Incon- 
trovertibly  forced  on  him  was,  above  all,  the  knowl- 
edge that  all  his  theories  had  been  mistaken,  wrong, 
and  bad ;  that  he  was  the  victim  of  his  own  ill-doing, 
—  as  far  beyond  real  pity  as  he  was  beyond  true 
hope. 

And  she !  Her  face  rose  before  him  with  all  the 
charm  of  the  irrevocable,  —  the  dark  hair,  the  flashing 
eyes,  the  gleaming  flesh.  Again  the  slight  flush  oi 
her  cheek  intensified  the  glance  that  she  darted  upon 
him.  Again  he  saw  the  long-lashed  lids  drooping 
over  eyes  dark  but  limpid,  like  still  woodland  pools 
in  which  rare  beams  of  wandering  sunlight  linger, 
Whatever  she  had  been,  he  thought,  Mary  Braddock 
loved  him.  And  yet  he  found  it  useless  to  disguise 
any  longer  the  fact  that  for  her  he  could  discover  in 
his  heart  nothing  but  compassion.  He  told  himself 
that  he  must  never  have  loved  her,  or  else  her  sacri- 
fice would  surely  endear  her  tenfold  to  him  now. 
He  no  longer  attempted  to  reason  about  it.  He  had 
in  one  night  tried  the  game  with  happiness,  and  lost. 

At  last,  however,  though  unconsciously,  a  new 
course  of  thought  began  to  shape  itself  in  his  sick  brain. 
Whatever  his  duty  to  this  woman,  it  could  hardly 
be  as  severe  as  if  he  had  not  been  but  one  of  other 
lovers.  After  all,  he  had  left  her  as  he  found  her. 


THE  ETERNAL  MASCULINE.  35 

He  was  the  only  loser,  most  likely  the  only  sufferer, 
while  she — the  thought  blazed  into  his  mind  —  it 
was  she  who  had  robbed  him. 

He  was  not  fair  —  no  man  in  Jarvis'  condition  can 
be  that  —  and  moreover  he  was  cruel.  He  did  try  to 
continue  in  his  belief  of  her  love  of  him,  but,  in  view 
of  her  past,  the  answer  to  such  belief  was  now  rather 
obvious.  She  was  not  there  to  plead  the  frankness 
of  her  confession,  and,  if  she  had  been,  it  is  likely  that 
he  would  have  passed  it  by  unnoticed. 

Surely,  there  is  also  an  eternal  masculine !  Jarvis' 
tumultuous  despair  had  to  find  some  vent,  and  the 
man  in  him  demanded  that  the  woman  should  suffer. 
Upon  her  the  vials  of  his  wrath  were  opened.  Human 
nature  is  capable  of  bearing  only  a  limited  amount  of 
self-condemnation,  and  all  at  once  he  found  it  easy 
enough  to  see  how  she  had  been  to  blame.  Why 
had  she  led  him  on?  He  was  sure  she  had.  He 
remembered  a  thousand  now  significant  little  words 
and  gestures  that  before  had  passed  as  only  the 
unpremeditated  outbursts  of  an  affectionate  girl. 
She  knew  him  to  be  a  mere  boy.  She  had  read 
him  aright,  better  than  ever  heretofore  he  had  been 
able  to  read  himself.  He  was  surprised  that  he 
could  have  been  so  blind  in  regard  to  either.  He 
was  angry  with  both,  but  he  soon  found  that  he 
was  much  more  angry  with  her. 

By  degrees  the  storm  of  his  self-reproach  began 


36  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

to  resolve  itself  into  an  overmastering  antipathy  for 
the  woman,  who,  but  a  few  evenings  before,  he 
had  imagined  was  as  indispensable  to  his  life  as 
food  and  air.  He  was  too  unlettered  in  the  world's 
ways,  too  helpless  as  yet  among  its  unknown  cur- 
rents. The  universe  that  he  had  constructed  from 
his  books  had  been,  in  one  instant  of  passion, 
proved  wrong  and  completely  overturned.  A  man 
in  that  universe,  he  had  been  a  defenceless  child 
in  the  reality.  He  had  been  so  utterly  ignorant. 
But  she  knew!  She  knew!  Oh,  no,  it  was  not 
fair! 

He  endeavoured  in  vain  to  contend  against  this 
sense;  to  fight  off  as  unfeeling  and  unjust  this  in- 
clination to  condemn  her  unheard.  But  he  was 
too  tired,  too  exhausted  by  the  preceding  mental 
struggles  to  fight  either  long  or  hard,  and,  even 
while  he  felt  himself  sinking  to  potentially  lower 
depths  of  self-hate,  he  gave*  way  and  submitted. 

Bear  in  mind  that  this  boy  —  he  was  little  more 
— was  home-bred,  with  pure  instincts  and  originally 
high  ideals.  He  had  been  withheld  from  that  contact 
with  his  fellows  which  strengthens  self-reliance,  gives 
a  tone  to  manhood,  and  at  the  same  time  brushes 
away  the  delicate  down  of  ignorance  that  is  the  chief 
charm  of  ingenuous  youth.  If  a  man  in  like  straits 
should  think  and  feel  as  Jarvis  then  thought  and  felt, 
he  would  be  an  unbearable  prig,  but  Dick  was  still 


THE   ETERNAL   MASCULINE.  37 

short  of  maturity  in  all  the  qualities  of  thought  that 
years  alone  can  bring,  and  he  had  been  deceived  and 
entrapped,  not  deliberately,  perhaps,  but  none  the  less 
irretrievably,  by  a  woman  of  clear-sighted  worldliness. 
He  knew  this  and  he  could  not  feel  otherwise. 

In  a  few  short  hours  his  sentiments  had  undergone 
a  complete  revolution.  His  whole  being  had  suffered 
a  tremendous  overthrow,  and  the  mind,  dazed  as  yet 
from  the  shock  of  the  struggle,  was  thus  far  unable  to 
adjust  itself  to  the  new  intellectual  focus.  The  anni- 
hilation of  the  artificial  self  was,  for  the  time  at 
least,  absolute,  and  he  could  not,  all  at  once,  appre- 
ciate the  resurrection  —  although  assured  —  of  the 
self  inherited. 

Nevertheless,  he  felt  both  bestial  and  abased. 
After  all,  he  was,  then,  like  other  men,  only  a  very 
slightly  elevated  animal;  he  who  had  felt  himself 
inspired  by  some  divine  message,  uplifted  by  some 
heavenly  gift,  some  spark  of  the  eternal  fire !  Why, 
he  had  even  imagined  he  had  something  in  common 
with  Dante  and  Milton  and  Shakespeare,  some  closer, 
invisible  communion  that  set  him  apart  from  the  rest 
of  the  world,  he,  slime  from  the  vilest  sewers  of  the 
race  !  It  was  just  as  well  that  he  had  returned  where 
he  belonged.  He  could  not  conceive  the  point  of 
view,  the  psychological  character  that,  until  that 
night,  had  been  Richard  Jarvis  for  so  many  years. 
He  wondered  at  him.  He  could  see  the  results, 


38  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

but  was  quite  at  a  loss  to  enter  into  the  train  ot 
thought  that  had  brought  him  hither.  He  had,  it 
for  that  moment  seemed,  come  into  that  room  a 
boy  and  suddenly  found  himself  a  man. 

The  head  was  thrown  back  upon  the  unyielding 
cushions,  the  square  chin,  the  soft  mouth,  the 
frank  eyes  were  still  all  those  of  a  child,  and  if,  in 
connection  with  that  figure  to  which  they  belonged, 
they  seemed  unusually  boyish,  they  were  only  the 
more  beautiful  for  that.  When  he  was  introspec- 
tive as  now,  however,  they  were  intent  enough; 
and,  as  the  gray  light  of  a  dismal  Cambridge 
morning  stole  in  at  the  windows,  it  laid  cold  fingers 
on  his  forehead  and  drew  ominous  lines  beneath  the 
eyes  and  about  the  mouth. 

Slowly,  at  last,  he  stood  up,  and  going  to  his  bed- 
room began  to  undress.  The  sun  burst  above  the 
treetops  and  tinged  the  roofs  with  gold.  At  once 
the  whole  sordid  street  was  so  alive  with  joy  that 
a  great  self-pity  rose  again  within  the  lad.  He 
could  never  love  that  sight,  or  be  at  one  with  the 
purity  of  nature  again. 

Yet,  if  the  battle  had  only  begun,  the  initiatory 
skirmish  was  ended.  Little  by  little,  during  the  next 
week,  the  mist-figures  about  Jarvis  began  to  resolve 
themselves  into  ordinate  shape  and  form  to  his 
mental  vision.  By  sheer  force  of  constant  succession, 
the  very  repetition  of  incidents  created  a  rational 


THE  ETERNAL  MASCULINE.  39 

series  of  impressions  and,  from  this  state,  the  step  to  a 
generally  clear  intellectual  atmosphere  was  as  brief 
and  easy  as  it  was  imperceptible. 

He  found  his  lot  cast  among  a  new  set  of  con- 
ditions, himself  confronted  by  a  new  combination  of 
circumstances,  which,  he  was  forced  to  confess,  would 
not  have  been,  to  his  former  attitude,  by  any  means 
uncongenial,  and  which,  even  now,  were  not  unpleas- 
ant. He  took  his  meals  at  the  place  of  a  terrible 
Irishwoman,  whose  dining-room  was  small  and 
crowded  and  poor,  but  expensive  and  popular,  and, 
although  his  allowance  speedily  ran  short,  he  early 
found  it  possible  to  borrow  any  amount  at  any  mo- 
ment and  to  pay  only  when  the  creditor  himself 
was  in  need  of  a  loan. 

Quite  involuntarily,  too,  his  body  first,  and  then  his 
general  temperament,  were  adapting  themselves  to 
the  new  life.  Not  that  he  was  by  any  means  recon- 
ciled or  comforted.  There  was  merely  at  work  in 
him  that  unnamed,  incomprehensible  quality  which 
not  only  aids,  but  in  many  cases,  surely  though 
easily,  forces  a  man  to  acquiescence  and  endurance, 
if  not  indeed  absolute  forgetfulness.  Simply  by  dint 
of  that  subtle  power  he  began,  in  a  few  short  days,  to 
grow  used  to  his  changed  lot,  spiritual  as  well  as 
material. 

He  was  surprised  to  find  that  he  was  making 
friends,  or  at  least  binding  to  himself  many  close 


4O  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

acquaintances.  On  the  floor  above  him  roomed  to- 
gether Bert  Hardy  and  Tom  Mallard,  both  Pennsyl- 
vanians ;  the  former  an  old  playmate  of  whom,  since 
schooldays  began,  he  had  formerly  seen  but  little. 
This  Freshman,  by  means  of  his  Concord  chums, 
soon  put  Jarvis  in  touch  with  a  great  many  men 
whom  otherwise  he  would  most  probably  never  have 
met.  Mallard  was  a  "  conditional  "  Junior  who  took 
quarters  with  Hardy,  at  first  against  his  will  and 
simply  because  a  long-standing  intimacy  between 
their  families  commanded  it.  He  was  a  St.  Mark's  boy 
and  in  the  beginning  had  little  love  for  this  enforced 
proximity;  but,  by  the  time  the  peculiar  isolations 
of  certain  phases  of  Harvard  life  had  allowed  Jarvis 
to  discover  him,  Mallard  was  fast  becoming  con- 
ciliatory and  even  flattered  by  the  opportunities  for 
patronage  that  the  situation  offered.  With  these  two 
men  Jarvis  was  soon  on  terms  of  real  intimacy. 

For  his  part,  Hardy  was  essentially  a  creature  of 
good  fortune.  Not  that  he  did  not  deserve  all  the 
fine  things  that  came  to  him.  He  deserved  them  all 
and  more.  Only,  the  good  things  that  the  best  of 
colleges  has  at  its  disposal  are,  like  those  of  all  life, 
notoriously  insufficient  to  go  around,  and  Fate, 
reflecting,  perhaps,  that  there  is  solace  in  misery's 
companionship,  has  a  way  of  settling  such  matters 
by  bestowing  the  favours  on  but  a  select  few  of  the 
deserving.  The  present  recipient  had  been  born  rich 


THE   ETERNAL  MASCULINE.  41 

and  rather  fair  to  look  upon.  He  had  the  advantages 
of  birth  and  a  preparatory  training  at  a  large  and 
influential  school.  Consequently,  when  he  came 
down  to  Harvard  his  academic  career  was  more 
or  less  a  foregone  conclusion.  Other  people  had 
to  make  theirs.  If  they  were  the  right  sort  they 
could  do  it,  irrespective,  no  doubt,  of  money  and 
previous  acquaintanceship.  If  they  were  anything 
else,  no  amount  of  the  last  named  conveniences  would 
save  them.  But  Hardy  combined  all  three.  He  was 
not  a  cad  and  though  he  was  ready  and  even  anxious 
to  sow  his  share  of  the  oats  that  are  wild,  he  did  not 
care  to  turn  that  procedure  into  any  sort  of  agrestic 
festival.  With  his  money  he  was  generous,  but  not 
ostentatious.  And  if  he  was  a  bit  too  lazy  to  go  in  for 
athletics  himself  and  inclined  to  search  diligently  for 
courses  described  as  "  cinch,"  he  was  all  the  more 
enthusiastic  in  his  admiration  for  those  who  did  real 
work  in  either  sphere  of  University  life.  It  was  this 
happy  faculty  for  brilliance  that,  in  spite  of  the 
factional  combination  of  the  Boston  schools  —  made 
his  election  to  a  high  Class  office  just  as  much  a  matter 
of  course  for  him  as,  for  example,  to  the  Polo  Club, 
and  it  was  a  healthy  determination  to  do  his  best  by 
this  office  that  brought  him  into  Jarvis'  room  at 
eleven  o'clock  one  morning  some  days  after  their 
conversation  on  the  night  of  Bloody  Monday. 
Hardy  had  always  found  it  hard  to  begin  anything. 


42  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

Consequently,  for  a  while  the  talk  ran  in  the  usual  cur- 
rent —  of  the  food  at  Mrs.  Blank's,  of  the  instructors, 
and  their  courses.  The  one  was  "  rotten,"  the  others 
were  too  full  of  "  hot  air,"  and  the  last  were  gener- 
ally very  "  stiff."  Then  Jarvis  innocently  touched 
upon  football,  and  Hardy  gave  up  his  examination  of 
the  books  and  pictures  along  the  walls. 

"  Look  here,"  he  said,  "  why  don't  you  turn  out 
for  the  Class  team?" 

Jarvis  hurled  a  protesting  pillow  at  his  classmate's 
head. 

"  Out  you  go !  "  he  cried.  "  Why,  you  know  I 
never  played  in  my  life." 

"  Well,  a  Class  team  is  the  way  to  begin." 

"  Then  why  don't  you  try  it?" 

"  I  have  all  I  can  do  for  the  Class  now.  You  ought 
to  do  your  share.  You  're  big  and  strong  and  just 
built  for  it" 

"  But  I  have  n't  been  bid." 

"  Neither  was  Billy  Innez  bid  to  the  Friday  Even- 
ings, but  I  got  him  in." 

"  Omnipotent !     I  'd  rather  go  there." 

"  Oh  no  !  you  would  n't.  Besides,  you  '11  have  to 
give  all  your  attention  to  the  team." 

Jarvis  considered  it. 

"  Of  course,  it 's  not  a  sure  thing?  " 

"  Of  course  it 's  not.  You  Ve  got  to  earn  it  like 
everything  else  here." 


THE  ETERNAL  MASCULINE.  ^ 

"  Well."  He  flipped  a  coin  and,  catching  it  in  his 
hand,  glanced  at  the  result  of  the  experiment.  "  I  '11 

go-" 

He  did  go  and  with  considerable  iclat.  The  rudi- 
ments of  the  game  came  easily  enough.  There  was 
a  good  deal  of  hard  work  involved  and  a  good  deal  of 
self-denial,  but  to  Jarvis'  passion  for  novelty  these 
were  rather  pleasant  than  otherwise,  and  within  the 
week,  the  "  Crimson  "  was  reporting  a  "  find  "  for  the 
Freshman  eleven. 

Nor  was  this  all.  Contrary  to  the  common  manner 
of  Freshmen,  his  studies  also  began,  somewhat  later, 
to  occupy  a  considerable  portion  of  his  time.  Greek 
and  Latin  he  felt  (on  the  strength  of  a  B  in  his 
entrance  examinations)  privileged  to  neglect.  Mathe- 
matics, because  of  an  E,  he  deemed  it  useless  to 
cultivate.  But  to  History,  Government  and  especi- 
ally to  English,  he  devoted  himself  with  something 
of  his  old  zest  and  a  new  kind  of  dogged  method 
that  was  altogether  unusual  in  him.  In  English 
"  28,"  which  was  a  ludicrously  slight  review  of  our 
literature  in  general,  he  was  far  too  well  read  to  be 
at  home,  but  in  the  daily  and  fortnightly  themes 
of  "  22  " —  a  course  really  intended  for  higher  class- 
men—  he  found  precisely  the  occupation  that  was 
most  indispensable  to  him  in  regaining  his  mental 
equilibrium. 

that  he  did  regain  it  in  all  its  juvenescence, 


44  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

But  the  work  was  what  he  needed,  and  he  profited 
accordingly.  His  first  theme  was  read  aloud  to  the 
class  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  men,  and  this  little  honor 
spurred  him  on. 

Though  provided  with  what  should  have  been 
plenty  of  money,  Jarvis  had  not  yet  proceeded  in 
mock  desperation  to  try  to  buy  forgetfulness  —  one 
of  the  most  extravagant  luxuries  on  the  market  — 
but  he  had  become  more  deeply  introspective  than 
ever  before.  Previous  to  his  association  with  the 
Class  football  squad  he  had  sat  up  until  morning 
reading  Swinburne  with  eyes  too  young,  and  smok- 
ing cigarettes  with  lips  too  unaccustomed.  The 
result  was  the  gratifying  conclusion  that  all  women 
and  most  men  were  bad.  He  imagined  that  the 
glamour  was  gone  from  all  things ;  that  his  illusions 
were  permanently  broken.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he 
had  merely  succeeded  in  replacing  his  old  poetical 
ideals  with  others  equally  false  and  almost  irreparably 
hideous.  Where  he  had  formerly  committed  the 
blunder  of  thinking  all  things  beautiful  and  good,  he 
now  made  the  mistake  of  acknowledging  them  all  bad 
and  ugly.  He  had  only  substituted  demonolatry  for 
pantheism.  And  in  every  direction  there  were  times 
when  it  appeared  that  his  efforts  were  thwarted  by  a 
complete  despair.  Passive  as  this  state  was,  it  only 
required  a  fresh  glimpse  of  the  wrong  side  of  life,  a 
chance  word  at  the  proper  time,  to  change  it  from 


THE   ETERNAL   MASCULINE.  45 

kinetic  to  potential,  and  this  chance  was  not  long  in 
occurring. 

He  had  at  last  managed  to  write  the  letter  that 
Hardy  had  suggested.  It  could  not  hurt  her  and, 
for  his  own  peace  of  mind,  it  was  imperative  that  the 
correspondence  be  broken  off.  He  was  kind,  almost 
loving,  and  quite  ridiculous.  At  first  he  had  thought 
simply  to  let  her  notes  go  unanswered,  but  he  was  as 
yet  too  much  a  gentleman  for  that  course;  so  he 
wrote  in  a  way  which,  while  it  expressed  nothing 
definitely,  was  calculated  to  let  her  understand  that, 
much  as  they  had  been  to  each  other,  the  foundation 
upon  which  their  friendship  rested  was,  to  his  mind, 
one  of  sand.  It  could  not  withstand  the  storms  of 
life.  He  added  that  he  could  never  again  care  for 
any  other  woman,  and  he  really  believed  what  he 
said.  Smarting  under  the  assumption  that  she  was 
the  author  of  his  misery,  he  was,  quite  unwittingly, 
playing  the  cad  for  the  first  time  in  his  life.  But  he 
was  to  expiate  his  fault  to  the  full. 

He  had  not  long  to  wait  for  his  reply. 

Hardy  came  again  to  see  him  as,  one  night,  he  was 
undressing  all  over  his  three  rooms.  There  was  a 
little  beating  about  the  bush,  questions  about  the  foot- 
ball and  the  College  in  general  —  then,  playing  with 
tongs,  his  back  turned  and  speaking  in  that  offhand 
fashion  whereby  young  men  always  hope  to  make 
unpleasant  things  endurable, 


46  JAR  VIS   OF   HARVARD. 

"  Oh,  by  the  way,"  asked  Hardy,  "  did  you  write 
that  letter?" 

"  Yes,  day  before  yesterday." 

"Any  answer?  " 

"Not  yet.  But  I  know  how  it'll  be.  She's  a 
woman  of  no  illusions  herself,  and  so  well  calcu- 
lated to  have  a  good  deal  of  influence  over  a  fellow 
who  kept  all  his  untouched  till  she  broke  the  charm. 
And  no  one  knows  better  than  she  that  she  has 
broken  it.  Oh,  she's  been  fully  prepared  for  my 
letter !  " 

He  was  right.  In  age  a  year  or  two  his  elder,  in 
reading  quite  as  old  as  he,  and  in  sophistication  a  full 
decade  his  senior,  this  woman  had  been  taken  by  his 
poetic  and  distinctive  nature,  but  whilst  playing  with 
him  was  still,  in  her  own  way,  in  love  with  him.  Yet 
she  well  knew  that  whatever  hold  she  might  have 
upon  him  she  could  now  exercise  it  only  when  actu- 
ally in  his  presence.  He  was.  moreover,  out  of  sight, 
and  experience  had  taught  her  to  regard  such  con- 
quests as  were  in  that  state  as  being  just  as  well  out 
of  mind.  And  still,  so  complex  is  the  nature  of  these 
women,  that  she  too  perhaps  meant  something  of 
what  she  said  when  she  replied. 

The  letter  came  next  evening.  Jarvis  opened 
it,  it  is  true,  not  without  emotion,  but  with  feelings 
of  a  sort  entirely  new.  It  was  simple  and  to  the 
point : 


THE   ETERNAL  MASCULINE.  47 

"My  dear,  dear  Dick,"  it  ran.  "I  must  own  that  I 
was  n't  surprised  at  the  contents  of  your  last  letter.  I  appre- 
ciate your  abilities  and  your  talents  and  I  love  you  too 
dearly  to  be  a  stone  about  your  neck.  I  shall  watch  your 
life  with  the  greatest  tenderness  and  the  keenest  interest. 
For  the  rest,  I  must,  sooner  or  later,  I  hope,  try  to  forget 
the  man  while  I  admire  the  artist.  Yet  I  know  that  you  will 
never  find  any  one  to  love  you  as  I  have  done.  So,  if  you 
ever  need  such  help  as  a  weak  woman  can  give  —  and  every 
man  needs  that  some  time  —  my  life,  as  you  well  know,  is 
ready  at  your  service.  Whoever  shall  love  you  hereafter,  I 
at  least  have  had  you  first.  MARY." 

For  a  moment  after  he  had  read  this,  Jarvis  sat 
quite  still  beside  his  fire.  He  felt  her  words  more 
than  either  of  them  would  have  expected.  It  was  all 
falling  out  as  he  had  wished  and  yet  the  foreseen  result 
had  set  him  again  strangely  and  dangerously  at  sea. 
He  was  quick  for  the  great  change.  He  rose  to  his  feet, 
stifling  all  natural  regret  and  wounded  conceit.  With 
a  loud  scratch  he  struck  a  match  and  relit  his  pipe. 
He  was  afraid  she  was  laughing  at  him,  after  all  —  as 
indeed  she  partly  was.  He  fancied,  too,  a  note  of 
triumph,  and  something  of  a  threat  in  the  last  lines, 
and  in  this  also  he  was  probably  not  altogether 
wrong. 

"  '  O  Love  !  O  Lover !     Loose  or  hold  me  fast, 
I  had  thee  first,  whoever  have  thee  last,' " 


48  JARVIS  OF  HARVARD. 

he  tried  to  laugh.  "  She  might  have  been  at  least  a 
little  more  original !  " 

And  yet,  even  though  he  guessed  that  they  were 
both  only  playing  at  love,  he  could  not  altogether 
excuse  himself.  To  himself  it  was  useless  to  say  any 
longer  that  he  had  been  a  mere  boy.  He  had  all  at 
once  —  rightly  or  wrongly  —  come  to  the  conclusion 
that,  whatever  he  was  in  years,  he  had  been,  in  all 
essentials,  a  man. 

"  Well,"  he  said  aloud.  "  Damn  the  football !  I'm 
ready  for  life.  Let's  begin  to  see  what  it  is." 

And  he  threw  down  his  pipe  and  went  out. 


CHAPTER  V. 

TOWER   LYCEUM. 

JARVIS  took  the  elevator  and  went  up  to  Hardy's 
room.  He  did  not,  somehow,  want  to  talk  with  his 
fellow-townsman,  but  he  knew  that  his  quarters  were 
the  most  likely  at  hand  in  which  to  find  a  number  of 
men. 

The  place  was  filled  with  expensively-framed  prints, 
highly-coloured  examples  of  lithography,  representing 
card-playing  by  a  wonderful  variety  of  disreputable 
players.  There  were  photograph-racks  crowded  with 
pictures  of  cheap  actresses  whose  large  signatures 
were  scrawled  over  the  front,  and  marvellous  poker- 
hands  were  nailed  upon  the  walls.  These,  manifestly, 
were  the  peculiar  jewels  of  Mallard.  But  there  was 
also  a  big  business-like  working  table,  a  number  of 
Braun  photographs,  a  little  case  of  good  books,  and  a 
dense  fragrant  cloud  of  the  best  tobacco. 

Mallard  was  not  there.  Even  his  mother  could  not 
have  made  him  spend  more  time  than  was  necessary 
with  a  Freshman,  and  although  the  Junior  was  one  of 
those  men  who,  for  no  apparent  reason,  are  missed  by 
the  unseen  but  mighty  current  that  is,  after  all,  Har- 

4 


50  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

vard,  he  was  entirely  too  loyal  an  upper  classman  to 
spend  his  evenings  with  a  newcomer. 

Hardy,  however,  was  lounging  by  the  fire  in  his 
shirtsleeves.  A  sister,  innocent  of  Cambridge  tra- 
ditions, had  notoriously  sent  him  a  crimson  smoking- 
jacket  that,  since  its  first  incautious  opening  before  a 
jeering  crowd,  had  been  hidden  away  and,  as  Jarvis 
entered,  Stannard  —  fair,  handsome  and  boyish,  but 
pale  and  precocious,  one  of  the  butterflies  of  the 
Freshman  Class  with  a  remarkable  talent  for  drawing 
checks  and  caricatures  —  was  engaged  in  the  popular 
pastime  of  hunting  for  it. 

"Hello,  Hardy.  Hello  Stannard,"  said  Dick  as  he 
dropped  into  a  big  wicker  armchair.  "  Haven't  you 
found  that  thing  yet?" 

"  No.  Hardy  won't  tell  where  it  is.  I  want  it  to 
hang  as  a  model  in  Herbie  Foster's  window." 

"Well — what  else  are  you  fellows  going  to  do  to- 
night?" 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know,"  replied  Hardy.  "  Have  a 
pipe,  won't  you?  " 

"  No,  thanks;  not  now.  —  I  think  I  '11  go  to  town." 

"  That 's  something  like  !  "  cried  Stannard.  "  This 
lobster  won't  go  anywhere." 

Hardy  laughed. 

"  I  ought,"  he  protested,  "  to  go  'round  to  Sanborn's 
for  a  game  of  pool  with  Morgan,  but  I  'm  too  lazy  to 
move." 


TOWER  LYCEUM.  5! 

"  Rotten  trick,"  commented  Stannard.  Then,  "  Say, 
jarvis,  where  are  you  going  when  you  get  there?  " 

Jarvis  considered  the  somewhat  indefinite  form  of  it. 

"  Oh,  any  old  place.     Where  ought  a  fellow  to  go  ?  " 

"  He  ought  to  stay  in  Cambridge,  I  suppose. 
Otherwise,  where  would  be  the  use  of  town?  How 
about  the  Tower?" 

"The  what?" 

"  The  Tower  Lyceum.  Have  n't  you  been  there 
yet?" 

Jarvis  had  not. 

"  All  these  days  in  Cambridge  and  not  at  the  Tower  ! 
I  can't  let  you  neglect  your  education  in  this  way,  I 
really  can't.  What,  one  of  us  Faculty's  darlings  and 
not  yet  at  the  Tower?  Come  on  !  " 

Jarvis  readily  acquiesced,  and,  bidding  Hardy  good 
night,  they  hurried  up  Holyoke  Street  and  boarded 
one  of  the  trolley-cars  that  are  crowded  from  seven  to 
nine  and  empty  again  until  twelve  to  five. 

"  Come  up  in  front  behind  the  motorrnan,"  was  the 
guide's  direction.  "  We  can  smoke  there." 

As  they  passed  through  the  car,  Stannard  nodded 
to  one  or  two  of  his  friends  —  of  whom  there  already 
seemed  to  be  so  many  —  bound  on  a  journey  like  his 
own. 

"  You  can't  work  that  cigarette  game  on  this  car," 
cried  one  of  these,  as  he  saw  Jarvis  put  his  hand  to  his 
breast-pocket  for  his  case. 


52  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

"  Better  come  along,  Major,"  laughed  Stannard. 
The  "  Major,"  a  tall,  slim  fellow,  with  reddish  hair 
and  big  brown  eyes,  shook  his  head  and  went  on  try- 
ing to  read  his  book  and  talk  to  the  fellow  beside  him 
at  the  same  time.  When,  however,  the  door  had 
closed  on  the  retreating  forms  of  Jarvis  and  his  cice- 
rone, and  the  momentary  flash  of  their  matches  re- 
ported the  smoking  really  begun,  he  leaned  forward 
and  touched  the  conductor  on  the  arm. 

There  is  a  rule  on  the  Boston  street-car  lines  which 
prohibits  smoking  among  the  passengers,  but  the 
Cambridge  conductors  value  their  popularity  with  the 
students  too  highly  to  risk  it  by  enforcing,  of  their 
own  free  will,  a  merely  formal  regulation. 

"  Conductor,"  said  the  Major,  "  I  wish  you  'd  stop 
those  men  smoking  on  the  front  platform  there.  The 
smell  makes  me  sick." 

The  representative  of  corporations  was  forced  to  do 
his  bidding  when  a  passenger  thus  brought  him  face 
to  face  with  the  rule.  Jarvis  threw  away  his  cigarette, 
but  Stannard  held  his  hidden  in  his  hand  and,  on  the 
closing  of  the  door,  continued  puffing  undisturbed. 

"  That  was  the  Major's  work,"  he  said,  finally. 

"  Who  is  he?  "  asked  Jarvis. 

"  The  most  remarkable  man  in  College.  Could  do 
anything  if  he  did  n't  so  badly  want  to  do  nothing. 
You  licked  him  on  Bloody  Monday,  by  the  way." 

"  Is  that  the  man?     I  have  n't  seen  him  about." 


TOWER  LYCEUM.  53 

"  Well,  he  is  about,  all  right.  He  flunked  out  last 
year  and  the  year  before,  so  he  's  really  a  Freshman. 
But  he  went  under  only  because  he  was  starving.  He 
shovelled  snow  and  tutored  and  almost  carried  a  hod. 
Lived  on  milk  at  fifteen  cents  a  day.  Wrote  lies  for 
a  syndicate  of  newspapers.  They  even  say  he  was  a 
waiter.  But  he's  hit  it  at  last.  Went  down  to  Milk 
Street  and  invested  a  hundred  he'd  borrowed  God 
knows  how.  Now  he's  got  more  ready  money  and 
more  snap  courses  than  any  man  in  the  joint." 

While  Stannard  was  speaking  they  had  crossed  the 
tossing,  black  river  with  its  coronet  of  lights,  where, 
away  to  their  right  crept  Harvard  Bridge,  and  were 
clattering  through  the  maze  of  back  streets  about 
Henry  Square.  In  front  of  the  old  Raleigh  House 
they  leaped  from  the  car,  hurried  through  a  dark 
alley  and  emerged  upon  a  narrow,  crooked  thorough- 
fare, villanously  cobbled  and  ablaze  with  lights  from 
fifty  saloons  and  cheap  lodging-houses. 

Directly  opposite  was  a  dingy,  semi-ecclesiastical 
building,  the  chief  features  of  which  were  a  perilous 
fire-escape  and  a  sign  made  of  red  incandescent  lights 
forming  the  word  "  Tower."  There  was  a  long  line 
of  purchasers  before  the  box-office,  marshalled  by  a 
fat  policeman  who  was  doing  his  best  to  keep  his  feet 
warm  in  the  damp,  autumnal  night. 

"  You  here  again  ?  "  he  sang  out  as  Stannard  took  his 
place  at  the  end  of  the  line.  "  Third  time  this  week." 


54  JARVIS    OF    HARVARD. 

The  crowd  grinned. 

"  Why 're  you  getting  in  line?"  he  asked. 

"  To  get  my  ticket,"  replied  Stannard  rather  shortly. 

"  Oh,"  said  the  guardian  of  the  peace,  quite  unruf- 
fled by  the  frigidity  of  his  victim :  "  I  thought  you 
generally  got  it  in  the  morning  before  you  went  back 
to  Cambridge."  Then  he  added  to  somebody  in  the 
crowd,  "Take  that  pipe  out  of  your  mouth." 

As  slowly,  but  also  as  certainly,  as  the  mills  of  the 
gods,  the  progress  of  the  line  gradually  brought  the 
two  Harvard  men  near  the  ticket-window.  As  Stan- 
nard drew  a  bill  from  his  pocket  he  felt  a  touch  on 
his  arm,  and  turning  saw  the  Major  in  the  file  behind 
him.  The  red  haired  man  was  looking  up  for  a 
moment  from  the  book  that  he  still  read. 

"  Get  admission  tickets,"  he  said  with  perfect  clear- 
ness of  tone  and  quite  oblivious  of  the  blue-coated  au- 
thority. "I  '11  put  you  on  how  to  fix  it  up  upstairs." 

Nearly  falling  over  a  frame  that  held  the  doubtful 
photographs  of  the  next  week's  players,  they  ran  up 
a  short  flight  of  steps  and  entered  one  of  the  Boston 
<v  continuous-performance  "  houses  so  unlike  those  of 
any  other  city.  The  building,  which  had  at  one  time 
been  indeed  a  church  and  afterwards  a  famous  theatre  in 
the  electrical  days  of  Forrest,  was  small,  but  packed 
from  top  to  bottom.  The  cheap  ornamentations,  the 
white  and  gilt  pillars,  were  scratched  and  soiled ;  the 
low  ceiling  was  black  from  the  flaring  lights.  There 


TOWER  LYCEUM.  55 

were  two  balconies  supported  by  frail  posts,  a  pit  and 
two  tiers  of  boxes  directly  on  the  stage.  Respecta- 
bility was  at  its  lowest  ebb  in  the  highest  gallery,  and 
rose  as  it  neared  the  floor,  in  opposition  to  natural  laws, 
yet  in  logical  accord  with  the  prices  which  ran  from 
ten  cents  "  upstairs  "  to  fifty  cents  in  the  stalls,  with  a 
dollar  for  single  box-seats.  The  pit  was  full  of  small 
shop  keepers  and  a  few  Harvard  Freshmen  ostenta- 
tiously displaying  their  grey  felt  hats.  Men  about 
town,  other  students,  loafers,  sailors,  and  in  general 
men  and  boys  of  the  great  unclassified,  made  up  the 
larger  portion  of  the  audience.  Everybody  gave 
free  vent  to  approval  or  disapproval,  shrieked  when 
amused  and  howled  abuse  at  the  performers  when 
displeased,  or  rather  when  not  amused.  One  or  two 
women  were  unenviably  conspicuous  in  faded  head- 
gear and  dirty  dresses.  They  laughed  quite  nat- 
urally and  unaffectedly  at  the  coarse  jokes  of  the 
comedians  and  their  mirth  attracted  neither  curi- 
osity nor  comment.  The  whole  place  reeked  with 
the  smell  of  tobacco-chewing  and  overheated,  un- 
washed humanity. 

The  Major — as  one  from  old  acquaintance  and 
familiar  with  the  place,  —  led  the  way  for  his  party. 
He  was  a  type  of  one  peculiar  clique,  a  strange 
mixture  of  slang  and  epigram,  of  ^cynicism  both 
affected  and  honest,  with  real  ability  that  he  could 
not  or  would  not  apply ;  and  an  authority  on  all 


56  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

things  in  Cambridge  and  Boston,  where  he  had 
spent  two  years.  He  now  tipped  a  fat  negress  who 
showed  them  into  an  empty  lower  box. 

Stannard  placed  a  chair  for  Jarvis  in  the  corner 
farthest  from  the  stage  and  sat  down  beside  him.  The 
Major  seated  himself  somewhat  behind  them  and  when 
he  saw  that  the  act  then  "  on  "  was  acrobatic,  opened 
his  book  and  began  to  read.  Stannard  glanced  hastily 
over  the  programme,  while  Jarvis,  abashed  by  his 
sudden  publicity  and  disgusted  with  the  sights  and 
smells,  fixed  his  eyes  on  the  performers  and  did 
not  dare  to  look  around. 

The  bill  presented  the  usual  wonderful  "  features." 
A  "  duo,"  direct  from  all  the  concert-halls  of  Europe, 
appeared  in  costumes  the  worse  for  their  continental 
sojourn ;  women  encumbered  by  the  weight  of  three 
dresses  worn  one  over  the  other  for  the  sake  of  quick 
change,  sang  dialect  songs  so  rapidly  that  not  one 
word  could  be  distinguished.  For  humour  they  de- 
pended upon  deformity  and  ribaldry,  and  for  pathos 
upon  motherhood  and  death.  One  fat  woman  with  a 
low-cut  gown  and  bold  eyes  sang  "  rag-time,"  ballads 
and  ambiguous  songs  at  the  box,  and  chaffed  the  men 
between  verses.  Every  one  got  encores  in  spite  of 
the  reticence  of  the  student  portion  of  the  audience, 
because  no  one  waited,  but  continued  to  reappear 
until  the  repertoire  —  and  they  themselves  —  were 
exhausted. 


TOWER   LYCEUM.  57 

Jarvis  grew  steadily  more  and  more  embarrassed, 
and  yet,  despite  himself,  more  and  more  pleased. 
The  whole  thing  was  so  new  for  him.  With  the 
reality  he  was,  of  course,  disgusted,  but  with  the  no 
less  substantial  ideal  which  he  saw  behind  it  all, 
he  was  fast  becoming  enamoured.  He  assured  his 
revolted  taste  that  here  was  the  world;  that  this, 
at  last,  was  life. 

Finally,  too,  there  was,  for  a  while  at  least,  some 
respite  from  the  nervousness  produced  by  that  white 
light  that  beats  upon  a  box.  Immediately  a  vulgar, 
muscular  woman  in  lavender  tights  had  concluded 
her  gyrations  upon  a  trapeze  and  bowed  herself 
off,  damned  by  the  scantiest  of  praise,  the  house 
was  darkened  and  rang  with  a  storm  of  approving 
cheers  as  the  calcium  flared  upon  a  series  of  "  liv- 
ing pictures "  —  the  last  survivors  of  that  ilk  — 
headed  by  a  grotesque  representation  of  MacMon- 
nie's  "  Bacchante."  By  the  time  half-a-dozen  such 
pictures  had  been  shown  and  the  "  olio  "  concluded, 
Jarvis  had  ample  opportunity  to  accustom  himself 
to,  and  to  again  endure  his  surroundings,  so  that 
he  settled  back  in  his  stiff  chair  to  watch  the  re- 
mainder of  the  exhibition  with  a  certain  degree  of 
pleasurable  anticipation  that  did  not  fail  to  surprise 
and,  after  the  emotions  of  the  early  evening,  to 
please  him. 

For  the  burlesque  there  was  a  flourish  of  music  — 


58  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

the  Major  described  it  as  uniform  noise  —  the  battered 
grand  piano  was  beaten  with  more  than  usual  vigor ; 
the  single  violin  squeaked  louder  than  before,  and  the 
curtain  rose  again.  The  chorus  advanced  toward 
the  footlights  and  began  a  shrill,  inarticulate  cackle. 
The  girls  were  in  tights,  nearly  all  of  them  extrava- 
gantly padded,  and  of  the  most  inharmonious  colours. 
There  was  one,  however,  who  caught  Jarvis'  atten- 
tion, if  not  by  the  perfection  of  the  figure  that  she 
displayed,  at  least  by  the  absence  of  artificial  means 
to  that  end.  She  was  a  rather  pretty  girl,  with  dark 
hair  and  eyes,  not  over  painted,  and  dressed  in 
colours  that,  by  comparison,  were  the  acme  of  har- 
mony. As  the  women  sang  and  began  to  make  eyes 
at  the  boxes,  Jarvis  —  moved,  as  always,  by  the  pre- 
vailing impulse  of  those  about  him,  —  tried  to  attract 
the  notice  of  this  least  vulgar-seeming  one. 

If,  at  the  first,  there  had  been  absolute  certainty, 
he  would  not,  probably,  have  cared  much  one  way  or 
the  other.  But  the  uncertainty  of  the  thing,  added 
to  the  false  glamour  which,  however  palpable  its  pre- 
tence, makes  the  stage,  even  in  its  lowest  forms,  so 
seductive  to  many  of  us,  served,  in  his  desperately 
nervous  condition,  to  egg  him  on. 

For  some  time  he  was  not  successful,  but  at  last 
their  glances  met  and  he  smiled.  Whether  or  no  she 
responded,  he  could  not  be  sure,  for  her  exit  was  just 
then  made.  But  he  expected  to  be  bored  through 


TOWER  LYCEUM.  59 

the  remaining  parts  until  the  chorus  should  come  on 
once  more. 

He  was  not,  however,  so  wearied  by  the  dialogue  of 
the  low  comedians  as  he  had  thought,  and  rather 
wished  to  be.  The  whole  thing  was  still  a  revelation 
to  him.  Brought  up  as  he  had  been,  his  earliest 
acquaintance  with  the  theatre  was  upon  that  institu- 
tion's highest  plane  and  best  behaviour,  and  he  had, 
until  now,  no  idea  how  far  a  playhouse,  as  judged  by 
his  prior  standards,  could  descend  toward  vulgarity. 
Yet,  as  much  of  the  talk  was  funny  enough,  and  at 
the  worst  merely  suggestive,  he  was  surprised  to  find 
himself  amused  by  it. 

But  as  there  was  absolutely  no  shadow  of  a  plot, 
the  novelty  soon  wore  off,  and  he  began  to  chafe  for 
the  miniature  excitement  of  his  flirtation.  Stannard 
and  the  Major,  who  had  both  seen  the  same  thing 
several  times  before,  were  engrossed  in  reading,  the 
one  his  programme,  the  other  his  book,  when  Dick, 
chancing  to  look  up  at  this  moment,  saw  the  girl 
standing  in  the  wings  and  gazing  eagerly  over  at 
him. 

She  wore  trunks  of  a  very  mild  and  bearable  shade 
of  pink  that  set  off  to  decided  advantage  her  small, 
shapely  legs,  the  more  graceful  by  comparison  with 
the  padded  monstrosities  of  her  less  artistic  sisters. 
Her  jacket  was  of  white  silk,  edged  with  a  fantastically 
embroidered  design  in  black,  belted  in  at  the  back 


60  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

and  hanging  loosely  over  the  hips.  There  was  an 
air  of  historical  accuracy  about  it  that  pleased  him. 
For  the  coming  scene,  which  was  laid  in  a  Turkish- 
bath  house,  she  had  thrown  over  her  a  sheet  that 
draped  itself  with  unintended  grace  about  her  head 
and  neatly  arranged  hair.  Jarvis  nodded  and  smiled. 

The  other  men  in  the  box  guyed  the  singers  in 
loud  undertones,  and  were  paid  back  in  their  own 
coin.  One  big  woman  in  green  sang  straight  at  Dick. 
In  a  coarse,  animal  way  she  was  good-looking,  a  glar- 
ing blonde.  As  the  scene  ended  in  a  series  of  wild 
kicks  on  the  part  of  the  chorus,  this  girl's  slipper  was 
loosened  and,  whether  by  accident  or  intent,  flew 
toward  the  three  Harvard  men.  Each  sprang  to  his 
feet,  making  wild  clutches  at  the  little  red  missile 
which  Jarvis  suddenly  found  in  his  own  hand  amid 
the  uproarous  jeers  of  the  audience. 

For  a  second  he  stood  there,  crimson  and  helpless, 
while  the  house  throbbed  with  derisive  shouts. 

"  Throw  it  back !  Throw  it  back !  "  urged  his 
companions,  and  in  a  desperation  of  embarrassment, 
he  hurled  the  slipper,  with  unintended  force,  to  the 
stage. 

The  dance  had  stopped,  and  the  unfortunate  loser 
of  the  bit  of  footgear  was  standing  alone,  beckoning 
excitedly  for  its  return.  She  flung  up  her  arms  and 
caught  it  with  all  the  expertness  of  a  professional  ball- 
player, and  the  curtain  fell  to  maddening  applause. 


TOWER   LYCEUM.  6 1 

The  three  filed  slowly  out  in  the  dense  crowd  amid 
the  waning  strains  of  the  much-abused  piano  and 
violin ;  the  scratching  of  matches,  the  odor  of  cigar- 
ette smoke  and,  as  they  neared  the  door,  the  puffs  of 
crisp  night  air,  and  the  cries  of  the  street  urchins 
selling  song-sheets. 

"  Well,  is  it  all  right,  Stannard?"  asked  the  Major, 
rather  ignoring  the  presence  of  his  less  sophisticated 
companion. 

"  Had  it  fixed  Monday  night,"  replied  Stannard. 
Then,  with  a  wave  of  the  hand  toward  Jarvis,  he 
added,  "  This  man  owned  the  stage." 

"If  I  did,"  remarked  the  Philadelphian,  "I'll  sell 
out  at  a  bargain." 

"  I  would  n't  be  so  quick  about  that,"  the  Major 
chimed  in,  apparently  addressing  the  crowd  on  the 
steps  below  him.  "  It  was  n't  a  peach-orchard  to  be 
sure,  but,  — well,  there  was  that  new  one,  for  instance." 

Jarvis  had  noticed  his  companions  signalling  to  the 
singers,  but,  abashed  by  his  all  too  conspicuous  posi- 
tion, had  himself,  with  the  single  exception,  refrained 
from  deliberately  attracting  the  attention  of  any  one. 
Now,  however,  he  was  ashamed  to  profess  his  shyness 
before  new  acquaintances  who  appeared  to  be  in  no 
wise  troubled  with  scruples  of  that  sort,  and  before 
one  of  whom  he  had  for  the  last  week,  moreover, 
been  posing  as  a  rather  hardened  rout.  The  ele- 
ment of  doubt  in  the  affair  still  pleased  him,  and  he 


62  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

was  always  most  happy  when  playing  a  part.  Not 
that  he  was  a  liar.  He  only  loved  to  pose,  and  the 
recent  stormy  and  quick  current  of  events  had  brought 
him  every  opportunity.  His  acting  was  without  a 
shadow  of  consciousness ;  he  had  a  perfect  confidence 
and  belief  in  himself,  and  suffered  to  the  last  throe 
every  ill  that  his  imagination  imposed.  But  he  was 
startled  to  note  awakening  within  his  heart  another 
feeling  so  like  that  which  had  been  stirred  up  by  Mary 
Braddock  that  it  was  impossible  to  mistake  it  for  any 
other  sort,  however  sure  he  had  been  of  its  death  and 
burial;  however  certainly  he  had  told  himself  that  he 
could  never  again  so  regard  the  woman  who,  he  im- 
agined, had  created  it,  much  less  any  one  else.  He 
kept  silence,  therefore,  allowing  his  companions  to 
draw  the  obvious  conclusion. 

"  Well,  nobody  can  get  out  for  twenty  minutes," 
said  the  Major,  whose  air  of  worldly  experience  was, 
with  perhaps  a  shade  more  reason,  as  true  as  that  of 
Jarvis.  "Let 's  go  and  get  a  drink." 

By  way  of  assent,  Stannard  remarked  that  it  was 
cold,  and  the  three  entered  the  bar-room  nearest  at 
hand,  Dick  half-hoping,  half-fearing  that  they  would 
miss  their  inamoratas  of  the  chorus. 

When  they  had  come  out  of  the  crowded  place 
(it  was  hung  with  Tower  programmes  of  other  and 
better  days)  and  were  standing  again  in  the  street, 
rain  was  falling  in  a  fine  drizzle,  almost  a  mist,  such 


TOWER  LYCEUM.  63 

a  penetrating  dispiriting  rain  as  only  a  Boston  east 
wind  can  bring. 

They  were  by  no  means  alone  in  their  vigil.  Scat- 
tered about  at  varying  distances  from  the  theatre 
stood  several  men,  mostly  from  "  town,"  leaning 
against  lamp-posts  or  hovering  in  doorways,  all  trying 
to  look  as  if  they  had  no  particular  business  there. 
The  three  grouped  themselves  in  front  of  the  saloon 
and  kept  their  eyes  glued  on  the  little  stage-door  that 
opened  close  off  the  main  entrance  opposite. 

The  players  came  out  by  twos  and  threes,  the  men 
first,  buttoning  up  their  coats  and  waiting  for  their 
feminine  fellow-workers.  In  about  fifteen  minutes 
followed  the  women,  in  every  one  of  whom  Jarvis 
recognised  the  one  he  was  waiting  for.  The  Major's 
came  early  and  he  left  the  other  two,  turning  down 
Tower  Street. 

As  Jarvis,  looking  after  him,  shivered  in  the  wet, 
far  down  the  way  there  came  the  thunder  of  a  bass- 
drum  followed  soon  by  a  chorus  of  hoarse  voices  and 
the  jangling  of  a  tambourine.  He  turned  and  saw 
approaching  beneath  two  dripping  flags  a  squalid 
band  of  the  Salvation  Army.  He  stood  on  the  curb 
and  watched  them  pass,  pale  and  thin  and  lantern- 
jawed,  yet  with  a  strange  look  of  transcendental  enthu- 
siasm on  their  faces.  The  thought  came  to  him — • 
these  survivors  of  the  thirteenth  century  Flagellants 
were  already  happier  than  he. 


64  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

"  These  are  the  stuff  of  which  martyrs  are  made," 
he  said  oratorically  to  Stannard.  But  Stannard 
puffed  on  his  cigar  and  deigned  no  reply. 

Jarvis  was  not  at  rest;  he  was  not  even  satisfied. 
He  had  first  found  that  he  did  not  love  Mary  Brad- 
dock  and  now  he  had  discovered  that  he  could  feel 
as  he  had  for  her  toward  another  woman  who,  appar- 
ently, had  nothing  to  recommend  her  save  the  purely 
physical.  It  was  his  first  experience  with  the  change- 
ability of  affection,  and  it  shocked  him  cruelly.  He 
could  not  know  that  it  was  the  simple  reawakening 
of  the  immortal  phoenix  of  desire. 

It  began  to  grow  colder  and  the  watchers  moved 
restlessly  about,  stamping  their  feet  and  puffing  out 
great  clouds  of  steam.  A  policeman  passed  and 
looked  at  them  suspiciously.  On  his  second  trip 
down  the  street  he  told  them  roughly  to  move  on. 

"We've  enough  ornaments  here,"  he  said. 

It  appeared  as  if  the  woman  would  never  come 
and  Jarvis  would  have  been  only  too  glad  to  get 
away.  Nevertheless,  he  was  for  resenting  the  form  if 
not  the  matter  of  the  order,  when  Stannard  took  him 
by  the  arm  and  they  moved  a  few  paces. 

"They  none  of  them  like  us,"  he  said,  "and 
they  want  nothing  better  than  a  chance  to  run 
us  in." 

The  pair  had  not  long  occupied  their  new  lookout 
when  the  stage-door  opened  and  a  woman  appeared, 


TOWER  LYCEUM.  65 

this  time  unmistakably  she  of  the  pink  tights.  She 
looked  about,  hesitating  a  little,  and  then  nodded  to 
one  of  the  company  who  half  lifted  his  hat  and  walked 
away  with  her. 

"Why  didn't  you  go  over?"  asked  Stannard. 
"  She  was  looking  for  you." 

But  it  was  too  late  to  do  anything  except  make 
excuses,  and  at  his  friend's  proposition  they  again 
changed  their  post,  this  time  crossing  the  street  and 
pausing  just  before  the  delectable  door.  As  they  did 
so,  it  opened  once  more  and  a  bevy  of  women  came 
out. 

Jarvis  recognized  the  woman  whose  slipper  he  had 
caught.  She  looked  at  him  and  bowed. 

At  any  other  time  his  taste  would  have  forbidden 
the  initiatory  action  which  followed  on  his  part,  but 
he  was  stung  by  Stannard's  implied  slight  and  re- 
solved to  prove  it  misdirected.  He  therefore  bowed 
in  return  and  stepped  up  beside  her. 

"  Oh,  look  at  Maggie's  mash !  "  cried  one  of  the 
departing  girls. 

Jarvis  blushed  violently,  but  Maggie  stretched  out 
her  hand  with  the  perfect  frankness  of  an  old  ac- 
quaintance, 

"  I  did  n't  know  whether  to  expect  you  or  not," 
she  said. 

From  the  corner  of  his  eye  he  saw  Stannard  walk- 
ing in  the  opposite  direction,  waiting  until  he  reached 

5 


65  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

a  darker  part  of  the  street  before  addressing  his 
Aldonza  Lorenzo  of  the  evening. 

"  You  might  have  known  I  'd  be  here,"  he  an- 
swered Maggie. 

"Well,  when  I  came  in  after  the  last  part,  the 
girls  said  I  need  n't  expect  to  get  you.  They  said 
Lily  Forrest  had  been  talking  to  you  from  the 
wings  all  evening." 

"  I  never  saw  her  before  to-night,"  said  Jarvis, 
with  perfect  truth,  reflecting  at  the  same  time  that 
the  remark  applied  quite  as  well  to  the  woman  beside 
him.  "Where  can  we  get  something  to  drink?"  he 
added,  in  order  to  turn  the  conversation  to  a  less 
difficult  channel. 

"  We  girls  generally  go  right  across  there  on  the 
square,"  she  replied. 

Piloted  by  Maggie,  they  soon  emerged  upon  a 
more  open  thoroughfare,  stopping  before  the  side 
entrance  to  a  saloon  which  bore  the  sign  "  Omega." 

On  opening  the  little  postern,  they  were  ushered 
up  a  flight  of  narrow  stairs  to  a  dark  hallway  off 
which  opened  some  dozen  slight  doors  without  tran- 
soms. Maggie,  who  had  evidently  more  than  a  pass- 
ing acquaintance  with  the  place,  flung  one  of  these 
wide,  gaily  waving  her  hand  to  another  girl  similarly 
engaged  at  the  upper  end  of  the  passage. 

Inside,  the  little  room  was  innocent  of  all  orna- 
mentation. The  walls  were  thin  partitions  of  pine. 


TOWER  LYCEUM.  67 

There  was  a  single  light  burning  over  the  uncovered 
table  in  the  centre,  several  folding  chairs  along  the 
wall  and  ;ome  pegs  on  which  to  hang  hat  and  coat. 

A  silent  waiter  had  followed  them  in. 

"  What  II  you  have?  "  asked  Jarvis  of  Maggie. 

He  had  an  uncertain  idea  that  actresses  always 
"  had  "  champagne,  but  he  need  not  have  worried  on 
that  score,  for  there  was  a  very  prompt  reply  of, 
"  Beer." 

Actresses  are,  however,  nearly  always  hungry,  and 
Maggie,  with  a  readiness  that  showed  she  would  have 
ordered  a  more  expensive  drink  had  she  wished  it, 
hastened  to  add, 

"  I  'd  like  something  to  eat,  though.  You  can't 
get  anything  to  drink  after  twelve  unless  you  order 
stuff  to  eat,  anyhow." 

"What  do  you  want?"  asked  Jarvis,  relieved  that, 
notwithstanding  his  depleted  finances,  he  felt  able  to 
be  generous. 

"  Let 's  have  some  raw  oysters  and  sandwiches. 
That  will  do  for  as  long  as  we  stay."  Then,  "  You 
won't  have  to  order  anything  more  in  that  line  after 
twelve.  That 's  the  way  they  get  round  the  law,  you 
know." 

Jarvis  repeated  the  order  and  the  waiter  left  them 
alone  together.  The  Freshman  helped  the  woman  off 
with  her  hat  and  coat,  removed  his  own,  and  they  sat 
down  at  opposite  sides  of  the  table. 


68  JARVIS  OF   HARVARD. 

"Oh,  come  over  here  by  me,  I  won't  bite,"  said 
Maggie. 

He  obeyed  just  as  the  judicious  knock  of  the 
returning  waiter  sounded  on  the  door. 

Again  left  alone,  he  had  ample  opportunity  to  look 
at  the  girl  who  represented  a  phase  of  life  so  com- 
pletely novel  to  him.  Stage  women  are  very  like  a 
sea-shell.  They  belong  to  their  proper  surroundings. 
However  poor  and  tawdry  those  surroundings  may 
be,  they  are  infinitely  better  with  than  without  them. 
Maggie  Du  Mar,  as  her  name  appeared  on  the  pro- 
gramme, did  not,  by  diverging  from  it,  prove  the 
verity  of  the  general  rule.  She  was  very  different 
from  much  that,  on  the  stage,  she  had  appeared  to  be. 
She  must  have  been  made  up  even  more  than  Jarvis 
thought,  for  she  was  frightfully  pale  and  the  heavy, 
tired  eyes  looked  much  smaller  when  relieved  of  their 
borders  of  crayon  du  sourcil.  He  was  pleased  to  find 
that  her  figure  was  not  extravagant,  but  her  hands 
were  none  too  clean,  and  under  one  ear  a  streak  of 
rouge  still  remained. 

His  artistic  sense  would  have  been  more  to  him  at 
such  a  time  than  any  inherited  moral  tendencies,  but 
that .  sense  had  been  well-nigh  dissipated  in  the 
struggle  that  followed  his  last  letter  to  Mary  Brad- 
dock.  It  might  in  time  reassert  itself,  but  as  yet  few 
relics  remained,  and  meanwhile  its  place  had  been 
taken  by  a  caricature  of  the  code  under  which  he 


TOWER  LYCEUM.  69 

had  been  brought  up,  a  base  simulacrum  that  served 
only  to  upbraid,  and  was  too  much  weakened  by  the 
early  fight  against  its  reality  to  offer  calculable  resist- 
ance to  all  that  was  rising  from  the  fire  in  his  heart 
What  was  he,  after  all,  that  he  should  longer  struggle? 
The  heights  were  not  for  him.-  He  had  fallen,  and  he 
resolved  to  make  the  best  of  things  as  they  were. 

From  the  other  room  came  the  sound  of  laughter 
followed  by  long  periods  of  whispering.  Bottles  were 
opened.  He  could  hear  the  beer  poured  into  the 
glasses.  He  held  his  own  glass  in  his  hand  and  put 
the  other  arm  about  the  woman's  waist. 

"  Well  Maggie,"  he  said,  "  Here 's  luck,"  and,  bend- 
ing forward,  kissed  her. 


CHAPTER  VI. 
A  GIRL  IN   A  GARDEN. 

TIME  is  an  abstract  unreality  that  is  never  definitely 
observed  by  the  College  Freshman,  and  Jarvis  took 
but  little  account  of  it.  Indeed,  his  realization  of 
what  he  had  done  came  some  days  later  when  he 
woke  one  rare  morning  to  find  himself  in  a  herdic 
rattling  up  Massachusetts  Avenue. 

He  looked  out  of  the  window.  The  sun  was  high 
and  the  street  alive.  His  watch  had  stopped,  but  it 
must  have  been  at  any  rate  eleven  o'clock.  With  the 
first  sense  of  caution  he  had  recently  experienced,  he 
recalled  that  though  the  proctors  are  awake  only  by 
night,  it  would  not  look  well  to  drive  up  to  Claverly 
at  that  hour.  So  he  buttoned  his  ulster  over  his 
dress-coat  and,  trying  to  look  as  if  an  opera  hat 
was  his  accustomed  daylight  headgear,  dismissed  his 
driver  and  set  out  for  his  rooms  afoot. 

Half  way  he  was  accosted  by  a  tremendous  young 
fellow  who,  wrapped  in  a  huge  gray  raglan  coat, 
appeared  to  occupy  the  whole  pavement. 

Jarvis  was  not  then  conscious  of  any  particular 
fault,  but  he  did  not  want  to  meet  anybody  and  would 


A  GIRL  IN  A  GARDEN.  71 

have  gladly  avoided  this  person.  However,  he  had 
not  had  his  eyes  sufficiently  open  and  it  was  now  too 
late. 

"  Look  here,  you  !  "  cried  Innes,  the  captain  of  the 
Freshman  eleven.  "  Where  the  devil  have  you  been, 
anyhow?" 

Jarvis  smiled  wanly. 

"  Oh,  of  course,"  he  said,  "  I  'm  only  wearing  this 
hat  because  I  'm  running  for  the  Dickey."  Then,  a 
trifle  sullenly,  he  added,  "  Been  in  town." 

"You've — ?"  Innes  seemed  unable  to  conceive 
such  perfidy  as  was  thus  implicitly  confessed.  "  What 
do  you  mean  ?  "  he  bellowed. 

"  What  I  say.  Look  here,  I  don't  see  what  right 
you've  got  to  drool  to  me.  You 're  not  the  Dean, 
you  know.  I  don't  see  why  I  Ve  got  to  play  football 
if  I  don't  choose." 

He  started  to  one  side,  but  the  dark-faced  giant 
easily  blocked  his  path. 

"Then  it's  true  you've  broken  training?"  he 
gasped. 

"  I  don't  know  who  's  been  telling  tales,"  replied 
Jarvis,  "  but  I  have  n't  tried  to  hide  anything.  I 
have  n't  done  anything  to  be  ashamed  of  to  you.  I 
was  n't  breaking  training.  I  was  just  giving  up  foot- 
ball. There  's  a  distinction.  Now  let  me  pass." 

"  Oh,  I  '11  let  you  pass,  all  right,  and  so  will  every- 
body else,  you  — ." 


72  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

But  Jarvis  did  not  wait  to  hear  the  epithet.  He 
knew  that  if  he  did  there  would  be  a  fight,  and  all  he 
now  wanted  was  time  to  think  it  all  over. 

What  he  had  said  was  perfectly  true.  He  had  not 
meant  any  wrong,  and  yet  he  seemed  to  have  com- 
mitted the  worst  crime  in  the  College  decalogue. 
Certainly  the  "  Crimson  "  thought  so,  and  as  he  next 
day  read  its  editorial  on  his  anonymous  case,  he 
burned  with  shame  and  anger.  The  men,  too,  avoided 
him.  They  spoke  to  him,  of  course,  at  lectures  or 
meals,  or  in  the  Yard,  but  none  dropped  in  to  see 
him,  much  less  stopped  to  cry  for  him  the  cheerful 
"  Hay-y-y !  "  from  the  street  below. 

He  could  have  taken  up  with  Stannard  and  that 
"  gang,"  but  for  the  nonce  he  really  loathed  them  as 
much  as  he  just  then  loathed,  for  instance,  the  cheap 
cynicism  of  the  Major,  and  so  he  began  the  life  of 
a  hermit  in  the  midst  of  a  town  full  of  possible 
friends. 

So  strongly  did  this  solitary  habit,  the  frame  of 
mind  of  the  social  outcast,  fasten  upon  him,  that  he 
came  to  dread  to  go  out  by  day  and,  cutting  a 
number  of  lectures,  he  often  remained  in  his  room 
until  nightfall  when  he  would  sneak  off  to  town, 
prowl  about  the  deserted  streets  to  the  north  of  the 
Yard,  or  wander  into  the  odd  thoroughfares  of 
Cambridgeport,  sometimes  even  until  Claverly  was 
locked  for  the  night  with  no  one  to  open  a  friendly 


A   GIRL  IN   A   GARDEN.  73 

window  for  him.  He  bought  a  hundred  bad  cigars 
from  the  negro  who  swears  he  smuggles  them  in  as  the 
steward  of  a  yacht,  and  these  he  determinedly  made 
the  companions  of  his  aimless  vigils.  Soldiers'  Field 
he  did  not  dare  to  enter.  Even  the  conscientious 
Hardy  had  failed  to  look  him  up,  and  he  was  begin- 
ning to  feel  what  it  was  to  be  a  "  jay  "-  —  an  outsider 
—  or  one  of  the  many  who  were  starving  themselves 
to  get  through  College. 

Not,  however,  that  he  was  getting  through.  The 
"  Hour  Exams "  came  upon  him  at  his  very  worst 
time  and  his  performance  was  brilliant  in  no  single 
respect.  With  English,  to  be  sure,  he  had  no  trouble, 
nor  with  French,  but  in  most  of  his  other  studies  he 
passed  only  by  chance  and  the  narrowest  of  margins, 
while  Government 'and  Mathematics  were  horrid  fail- 
ures. The  politely  printed  postal  card,  requesting 
his  early  presence  at  the  office,  followed  naturally. 
The  Recorder  smiled  blandly,  but  intimated  in  terms 
of  unmistakable  clarity  that  he  must,  "  brace  up." 
He  did  not  want  to  brace  up.  He  felt  that  the  Col- 
lege had  wronged  him  and  it  never  occurred  to  him 
that,  the  College  not  being  clairvoyant,  it  should  fail 
to  understand  his  course,  as  long  as  he  himself  de- 
clined to  explain  it. 

At  last,  nevertheless,  the  change  came  from  an 
unexpected  quarter.  It  arrived  again  in  a  letter,  this 
time  one  that  Jarvis  came  across  in  going  over  his 


74  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

mail  one  Saturday  morning  before  a  late  breakfast  at 
the  Holly-Tree. 

Mallard,  who,  lonely  as  he  himself  was,  did  not  be- 
lieve in  inter-class  intimacies,  had  yet  so  far  taken  pity 
on  the  Freshman  as  to  drop  in  on  him  a  moment  before, 
and  Jarvis  was  wavering  between  gratitude  and  pride 
when  the  missive's  familiar  crest  caught  his  eye  and 
he  dropped  the  envelope  with  a  groan  of  disgust. 

"  What 's  the  trouble? "  asked  his  visitor. 

"Oh,  it's  from  Mrs.  Bartol.  She's  a  kind  of 
cousin  by  marriage,  whom  I  have  n't  seen  for  ten  years 
and  now  she  's  at  the  Hapsburg  and  wants  me  to 
come  there  and  meet  her  daughter." 

"  Well,  there  are  worse  things  in  the  world  than 
nice  girls." 

"  Perhaps,"  Jarvis  admitted.     "  Let  us  at  any  rate 
hope  so,  as  we  all  have  to  marry  one  some  day  — 
except  the  lucky  few." 

"  Unless,"  continued  Mallard,  pursuing  his  train  of 
thought,  "  unless  she  has  a  soprano  voice." 

"Why  so?" 

"  My  dear  chap,  you  can't  imagine  its  capabilities 
when  raised  in  anger.  My  sister  has  one." 

"  Well,  I  hardly  expect  to  marry  my  little  fourth 
cousin  —  or  any  one  else  for  that  matter." 

"  Ah,  Jarvis,  fate  is  quite  inscrutable.  I  advise 
you  to  see  in  every  respectable  girl  a  potential  wife. 
It 's  the  only  way  to  enjoy  their  company." 


A  GIRL  IN  A   GARDEN.  75 

"  That 's  rather  sweeping." 

"  Not  at  all.  The  limiting  adjective  circumscribes 
a  very  small  and  select  few.  But  tell  me  about  your 
little  cousin." 

"  There  is  n't  anything  to  tell." 

"No?" 

"  I  mean  I  don't  know  her ;  that  I  haven't  seen  her 
since  she  was  five  years  old,  —  and  I  don't  think  my 
recollections  of  that  time  would  interest  you.  Her 
father  was  some  sort  of  a  connection  of  mine  and  was 
killed  in  some  miserable  skirmish  with  two  or  three 
half-starved  Indians,  somewhere  in  the  west." 

"  You  're  delightfully  vague.     Recently?  " 

"  No,  a  few  months  before  Peggy  was  born. 
Luckily  for  her,  her  mother  came  into  some  money 
shortly  afterward,  and  they  've  been  living  in  Chicago 
ever  since." 

"  What  are  they  doing  in  town?  " 

"  Oh,  Mrs.  Bartol  is  always  running  about  to  the 
dedication  of  statues  of  the  General  —  that 's  her 
husband  and  —  I  suppose  now  they  Ve  been  putting 
one  up  in  the  Public  Gardens,  —  if  they  Ve  any  room 
left  there." 

"  And  she  takes  her  daughter  along?" 

"  She  did  n't  use  to,  but  she  probably  thinks  the 
girl  old  enough  for  that  at  last.  She  stopped  off  to 
see  us  every  now  and  then,  but,  somehow  or  other,  she 
never  brought  the  girl.  Peggy  was  at  Farmington." 


76  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

"  Farmington ?     How  long  ago  did  she  go  there?" 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know !  Two  or  three  years  ago. 
Why  do  you  want  to  know  that?  You're  a  regular 
old  woman.  I  never  knew  you  were  such  a  ladies' 
man." 

Mallard  did  not  heed  the  paradox. 

"  I  used  to  know  a  lot  of  girls  there,  that  was  all. 
Almost  ready  ?  " 

Jarvis  had  announced  his  intention  of  trying  to 
appear  again  before  the  College  public,  and  so  gave  a 
last  glance  at  the  glass,  and  a  lingering  caress  to  his 
tie. 

He  went  to  his  one  lecture  that  morning  and  then 
started  for  the  Saturday  trip  to  town  that  was  fast  be- 
coming a  regular  habit  with  him.  He  was  perfectly 
free  for  the  rest  of  the  day  and  did  not  have  to  pay 
his  respects  to  Mrs.  Bartol  until  shortly  before  the 
dinner  hour. 

Yet  this  obligation  troubled  him  not  a  little.  In 
the  short  while  he  had  been  in  Cambridge  he  had 
fallen  into  all  the  easy  and  delightful  half-savage  ways 
that  some  men  at  College  so  readily  adopt,  and  he  had 
not  made  a  single  one  of  the  calls  that  he  owed  to  the 
Boston  friends  of  his  family.  But  though  he  felt  that 
he  could  neglect  them  with  a  light  heart,  if  not  in- 
deed with  a  clear  conscience,  here  was  a  duty  which 
he  must  discharge.  The  invitation  was  direct,  and  he 
knew  his  relative  too  well  to  hope  that  she  could  be 


A   GIRL  IN   A   GARDEN.  77 

evaded  by  a  pretence  of  his  being  out  of  town.  She 
would,  of  course,  stop  in  Boston  for  some  time  and 
sooner  or  later  he  would  have  to  go.  Yet  he  had 
intended  running  up  to  Lynn  that  night  on  quite 
another  errand,  and  he  did  not  want  to  change  his 
plans. 

It  was  a  splendid  day  in  Indian  summer.  He  got 
off  the  car  at  the  Public  Gardens,  and,  in  a  violent 
endeavour  to  find  a  way  out  of  his  dilemma,  started  to 
stroll  up  and  down  the  twisting  paths.  The  place  was 
entirely  metamorphosed  by  the  uniform  warmth  of 
the  late  season.  A  bird  or  two  fluttered  and  called 
in  the  branches  of  the  gloriously  coloured  trees ;  the 
leaves,  crimson  and  gold,  tossed  softly  in  the  mildest 
of  breezes  that  caught  the  more  sere  ones  as  they 
detached  themselves  from  the  boughs  and,  as  if  loath 
to  let  them  fall,  bore  them  gently  along  the  still  green 
sward,  already  dotted  with  their  fellows.  Here  and 
there  some  labourers  were  at  work  taking  up  the  later 
plants  from  the  flower-beds,  and  the  sound  of  their 
clinking  spades  mingled  in  a  happy  note  with  the 
laughter  of  the  children  at  play  beside  the  ponds  and 
the  cries  of  the  boys  at  a  ball  game  in  the  Common 
beyond.  Nursemaids  in  dainty  white  caps  and 
aprons  led  their  little  charges  by  the  hand,  held  them 
by  the  skirts  as  they  leaned  over  the  water,  or  pushed 
them  by  in  coaches.  A  fat  mother  was  endeavouring 
to  read  her  newspaper  and  keep  an  eye  on  three  pro- 


78  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

portionately  stout  youngsters  who,  in  Massachusetts 
fashion,  were  playing  with  a  couple  of  negro  lads. 
Professional  loafers,  with  coat-collars  turned  up  and 
hats  pulled  down,  were  trying  to  look  respectable  and 
occupied,  with  the  marks  of  the  last  night's  wanderings 
still  patent  upon  them.  The  whole  scene  tended  to 
restore  Jarvis'  temper  and  revive  his  satisfaction  with 
things  in  general. 

After  all,  matters  might  not  be  so  unpleasant. 
Unfortunate  as  he  considered  himself  in  the  larger 
affairs  of  life,  in  the  minor  ones  something  was  always 
sure  to  turn  up  in  his  favour. 

He  was  walking  now  over  the  bridge  that  spans  the 
pond,  when  he  noticed  directly  before  him  a  girl 
seated  on  a  bench  that  had  been  dragged  from  the 
shade  of  an  elm  into  a  stream  of  sunlight.  She  was 
leaning  easily  back,  with  an  unconscious  grace,  an 
open  book  lying  beside  her,  one  small  gloved  hand 
still  marking  the  place  and  the  other  toying  with  the 
rumpled  tow  head  of  a  dirty,  pretty  child  who  stood 
beside  her.  The  sunlight  washed  over  her  close-fitting 
suit  of  dark  blue,  turning  to  gold  the  wealth  of  unruly 
chestnut  hair.  As  Jarvis  drew  nearer  she  said  some- 
thing to  the  child,  from  whose  reply  she  looked  with 
a  frank,  cheery  laugh,  displaying  beneath  her  bowed 
red  lips,  a  flash  of  perfect  teeth,  and  meeting  Dick's 
steady  and  admiring  gaze.  Instead  of  embarrassment, 
the  look  that  came  into  her  deep  blue  eyes  was  rather 


A  GIRL  IN   A   GARDEN.  79 

one  of  surprise,  and  at  length  gave  place  to  a  smile 
that  was  almost  a  greeting. 

It  was  Jarvis  who  was  embarrassed.  There  was  an 
air  of  unmistakable  refinement  in  her  freedom,  and  he 
was  quite  at  a  loss  how  to  take  it.  But,  before  he 
had  decided  anything  he  had  passed  by;  and  then 
he  began  to  ridicule  himself  for  not  stopping.  What- 
ever she  meant,  the  girl  had  looked  at  him  and 
smiled.  If  she  did  not  mean  anything  by  that,  she 
had  no  business  to  do  it.  The  sunshine,  the  work- 
men, the  children,  and  the  trees  had  all  become  pro- 
foundly uninteresting.  He  would  go  back  and  accost 
this  girl. 

But  he  did  not  turn  at  once.  Despite  all  his 
reasoning  that  a  lady  would  not  have  so  looked  and 
smiled,  he  could  not  convince  himself  that  the  girl 
was  not  a  lady,  and  there  was  something  about  her 
that  made  him  quite  afraid  to  take  the  only  sure 
means  of  resolving  his  doubt.  If  he  were  to  go 
back  now  she  would  probably  not  be  there  any  way. 
Then  the  thought  of  missing  her  put  new  resolution 
into  him.  He  turned  on  his  heel  and  retraced  his 
steps. 

She  was  not  gone.  On  the  contrary,  as  he  ap- 
proached, there  was  that  in  her  face  which  half 
persuaded  him  she  was  waiting  for  him. 

He  raised  his  hat.  He  decided  that  he  would  treat 
her  exactly  as  her  manner  warranted. 


8O  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

"  How  do  you  do? "  he  said. 

He  could  in  no  wise  understand  her  expression. 
At  first  he  took  it  to  be  gratification,  then  it  seemed 
to  change  to  surprise,  and  then  suddenly  to  become  a 
reprimanding  stare.  It  must  have  been  that  all  along. 
But,  in  the  brief  period  of  his  experience  with  the 
world,  he  had  not  been  used  to  such  receptions,  and 
he  was  resolved  not  to  be  so  easily  beaten  now. 

"  Who  fixed  the  bench  so  nicely  for  you?  " 

"  My  husband." 

The  reply  was  brief  and  the  tone  low  and  musical, 
but  it  made  Jarvis  comprehend  just  how  awkwardly 
he  had  been  standing  and  just  how  foolish  his  smile 
was.  It  was  the  reprimanding  stare  after  all !  He 
wanted  very  much  to  hurt  somebody,  and  he  might 
not  have  stopped  even  if  that  somebody  had  hap- 
pened to  be  a  woman.  He  felt  an  almost  uncontrol- 
lable desire  to  run  away.  He  was  sure  the  whole 
Gardens  must  have  heard  those  words.  In  a  con- 
dition of  utter  humiliation,  he  cast  one  disgusted  look 
at  the  child  and  turned  aside. 

At  that  instant  he  heard  behind  him  a  peal  of 
laughter,  merry,  frank,  unrestrained,  the  same  which 
he  had  heard  when  he  first  saw  her  talking  with  the 
boy.  It  was,  perhaps,  too  distinct  for  such  a  place, 
yet  surely  no  man  could  find  a  fault  in  it.  For  a 
moment  Jarvis  was  too  angry  to  turn  about,  but  he 
did  not  go  away ;  and  with  a  feeling  that  he  was  be- 


A  GIRL  IN  A  GARDEN.  8 1 

coming  more  and  more  ludicrous  where  he  was,  he 
ventured  to  look  back  at  her. 

She  was  staring  straight  at  him  and  laughing  in  his 
face. 

"  But  you  need  n't  hurry  away,"  she  was  saying. 
"  My  husband  won't  be  back  for  ever  so  long." 

Before  he  knew  whether  to  laugh  or  be  angry,  he 
was  seated  beside  her. 

"  If  he  won't  be  back  for  ever  so  long,  it 's  a  queer 
place  for  him  to  leave  you,"  he  said,  determined,  in 
spite  of  himself,  to  be  hard  on  somebody. 

"  He  's  a  queer  man,"  she  replied  altogether  undis- 
turbed. 

Jarvis  was  about  to  answer  many  things,  but  he 
checked  himself  and  only  remarked, — 

"  He  must  be." 

"  Why,  do  you  think  it 's  such  an  awful  place  for  a 
woman  to  be  alone  in?" 

He  turned  toward  her  for  the  first  time  and,  finding 
her  looking  up  at  him,  with  her  face  very  close  to  his 
own,  glanced  quickly  away  again.  If  she  had  said 
"  lady "  he  could  very  readily  have  found  it  in  his 
heart  to  keep  his  eyes  upon  hers. 

"  Oh,  not  so  very.     That  is  —  " 

"  But  you  said  it  was." 

"  Did  I  ?  Well  —  er  —  have  you  been  long  in 
Boston?  Are  you  a  stranger  here?" 

"  By  no  means  —  not  a  stranger." 

6 


82  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

"  Well  then,  most  of  the  women  that  sit  around 
here  from  day  to  day  say  they  are." 

It  was  quite  lost  upon  her.     He  could  well  see  that. 

"  I  don't  see  what  that 's  got  to  do  with  it." 

"  Nothing,"  he  replied.     "  I  was  only  joking." 

"  Never  joke  with  a  woman." 

"Why  not?" 

"  Was  this  a  Boston  joke?  " 

"  As  a  native  you  ought  to  know." 

Then,  to  get  out  of  a  dangerous  quandary  and  to 
satisfy  his  rising  curiosity,  he  added, 

"  That 's  a  nice  child." 

"  Is  n't  it?  —Jimmy !  "  she  called. 

The  little  fellow  —  considering  that  he  could  walk, 
he  was  so  marvellously  little  —  left  off  trying  to  cast 
pebbles  into  the  water  and  waddled  toward  her, 
smiling. 

"  Them  do  make  awful  big  rings,"  he  remarked, 
sagely.  Then,  catching  sight  of  her  companion,  he 
cried  with  pointed  finger, 

"Who's  'at  man?" 

She  was  not  at  all  ruffled. 

"  Ask  him,"  she  responded. 

Before  the  child  could  frame  a  question  which  he 
had  not  yet  decided  how  to  answer,  Jarvis  hastened 
to  lead  him  off. 

"  He 's  not  queer  anyhow,  —  he  must  take  after  his 
mother," 


A  GIRL  IN  A  GARDEN.  83 

"His  mother?  Why  what  do  you  mean?  —  Oh! 
His  mother  !  His  mother  !  Oh,  oh,  oh  !  " 

And  she  went  into  peal  after  peal  of  laughter,  so 
unbridled  as  to  make  Jarvis  look  nervously  about 
him.  No  one  noticed  them,  however.  The  fat 
woman,  having  finished  her  paper,  was  leading  away 
her  struggling  progeny;  the  nursemaids  had  drifted 
out  of  sight,  and  the  sympathetic  policeman  had 
conscientiously  turned  his  back.  Dick,  therefore, 
ventured  to  ask,  — 

"  Then  he  is  n't  yours?  " 

Her  mirth  stopped  as  it  had  begun,  and  she  looked 
up  with  big,  serious  eyes. 

"  Now,  I  am  sure  that  was  very  wrong,"  she  said. 
"I  must  have  shocked  you  dreadfully." 

"What?     How?  "  he  asked,  completely  mystified. 

"Why,  by  laughing  so  terribly." 

"  Nonsense,"  he  gallantly  assured  her,  though  he 
would  not  have  had  her  do  it  again  for  a  good  deal 
more  than  he  just  then  had  in  his  pocket.  Yet  he 
was,  for  some  unaccountable  reason,  so  relieved  to 
find  that  the  child  did  not  belong  to  her,  that  he 
could  afford  to  forego  the  masculine  revenge  of  a 
severe  correction.  Nevertheless,  he  was  consider- 
ably confused  and  had  botched  the  conversation 
effectively. 

At  last,  with  a  hurried  glance  at  her  watch,  she 
rose  hastily  from  her  seat. 


84  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

"  It 's  time  for  me  to  meet  my  husband,"  she  said. 

But  she  was  blushing,  and  her  blush  was  far  too 
becoming  to  allow  her  to  escape  just  then. 

He  sprang  up  and  stood  before  her. 

"  I  thought  you  said  he  would  n't  be  back  for  ever 
so  long,"  he  pleaded. 

"Isn't  this  ever  so  long?" 

"That  depends  on  the  point  of  view.  I  shouldn't 
call  it  very  long." 

"  I  think  it  is  very  long  for  an  unaccompanied 
woman  to  sit  in  a  place  that  her  husband  would  n't 
leave  her  alone  in  if  he  was  n't  queer." 

He  looked  at  her.     She  was  laughing  again. 

For  a  while  he  was  without  reply.  Then  he 
escaped  by  a  purely  feminine  artifice. 

"  But  I  thought  that  he  was  to  meet  you  here,"  he 
said. 

"  Dear  me,  no  !  Queer  as  he  is,  he  would  n't  meet 
any  one  in  a  public  park." 

"  Neither  would  I  if  you  had  n't  as  much  as  asked 
me  to  —  called  me  back,  I  mean." 

Had  he  only  known  it,  he  was  more  nettled  by 
her  advantage  in  wit  than  by  her  implied  reflection 
upon  his  conduct. 

"  Call  you  ?  Do  you  mean  when  I  first  laughed  ? 
But  you  'd  have  come  any  way.  I  knew  you  'd  come 
back  the  first  time  you  passed.  I  was  expecting 
you." 


A  GIRL  IN   A   GARDEN.  85 

"  Indeed  ?  It  was  quite  by  chance  that  I  returned, 
I  assure  you.  As  for  the  child  —  " 

"  I  really  must  go.  Don't  be  very  angry,  or  very 
shocked,  will  you?  I  probably  shan't  ever  see  you 
again,  anyhow." 

She  offered  her  hand. 

At  once  his  whole  mood  changed.  He  pressed  the 
hand  and  it  was  so  quickly  withdrawn  as  to  leave  a 
doubt  whether  it  had  not  been  snatched  away. 

"  Oh,  but  I  must  see  you  again,  I  must,  you  know," 
he  begged. 

For  an  instant  she  hesitated,  and  then  stooping  to 
kiss  the  child, — 

"  There  's  your  mother  coming  now,  dear.  And 
you  —  well,  the  parlours  of  the  Grendome  at  eight 
to-night,"  she  said. 

"  I  knew  you  were  n't  a  Bostonian  !  "  he  cried. 

But  she  was  gone  and  —  though  she  was  so  ridicu- 
lously young  —  he  noted  with  a  sense  of  positive 
relief  the  approach  of  the  more  elderly  and  authen- 
tic mother  of  Jimmy. 


CHAPTER  VII. 
A  JUNIOR   UNDERSTUDY. 

JARVIS  did  not  attempt  to  follow  his  new  acquaint- 
ance. Her  novelty  rather  stunned  him.  He  sank  at 
first  on  the  bench  she  had  just  left,  and  when  he  be- 
thought him  to  look  up  again,  she  was  nowhere  to  be 
seen. 

"  What  a  fool  I  was,"  he  commented,  with  the  un- 
intended truth  we  allow  none  but  ourselves  to  use 
toward  us.  "  Now  I  shall  probably  never  set  eyes  on 
her  again." 

As  he  started  on  his  way  up  town  this  involuntary 
opinion  of  himself  was  momentarily  strengthened. 
She  was  so  utterly  and  charmingly  unlike  any  other 
girl  whom  he  had  ever  known,  that  his  reflections 
were  in  a  hopeless  whirl,  which  allowed,  nevertheless, 
of  considerable  self-disgust.  Why  had  he  let  her  ge 
without  finding  out  a  single  thing  about  her?  Why 
had  he  not  followed  her?  How  completely  he  had 
spoiled  the  whole  adventure,  and  what  an  arrant  ass 
he  had  been  all  through  the  interview !  He  had  not 
the  keenness  of  mental  vision  to  perceive  that  his 
whole  confusion  was  due  to  just  that  quality  in  her 


A  JUNIOR  UNDERSTUDY.  8/ 

which  made  her  most  charming  to  him,  but  he  knew 
very  well  that  he  had  been  by  no  means  at  his  best 
with  her  and,  for  a  very  good  reason,  into  which  he 
did  not  stop  to  inquire,  he  had  wished  to  excel. 

Of  course  she  would  not  be  at  the  place  of  meeting. 
At  least,  it  was  ten  to  one  that  she  would  not.  For 
what  was  she,  anyhow?  If  she  were  a  lady,  why  had 
she  spoken  to  him?  If  she  were  not,  why  had  she 
chosen  such  a  rendezvous  as  the  Grendome?  Yet  he 
could  not  doubt  her  personality.  She  was,  she  must 
be,  a  school  girl  —  of  some  new  and  more  interesting 
species  —  who  was  innocently  amusing  herself.  Be- 
sides, no  one,  not  even  the  girl  herself,  would  know  if 
he  did  go  to  meet  her  and  found  that  she  had  been 
playing  a  silly  joke  on  him.  Yes,  she  was  worth  it, 
and  he  would  go  if  he  had  to  miss  his  dinner  in  the 
attempt.  He — .  At  that  moment  he  remembered 
Mrs.  Bartol's  invitation. 

A  half  hour  before,  it  was  absurd  for  any  one  but  a 
child  to  chafe  himself  over  such  a  thing,  but  there 
are  few  men  in  Jarvis'  position  who  would  not  have 
done  so.  He  had  started  upon  an  existence  of  ex- 
travagant pleasure  and  reckless  disregard  of  College 
duty.  He  had  failed  to  call  on  the  people  who  would 
have  secured  him,  for  example,  an  invitation  to  the 
"  Friday  Evenings,"  and  he  could  not  have  enjoyed 
that  simple  form  of  childish  amusement  if  he  had 
been  invited.  He  had  not,  in  the  short  while  of  his 


88  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

residence  in  Cambridge,  spoken  five  words  to  any  one 
with  the  slightest  pretensions  to  the  name  of  lady. 
He  thought  he  would  be  bored  by  any  such  person ; 
he  knew  he  would  be  bored  by  Mrs.  Bartol.  Further- 
more, he  considered  it  very  probable  that  the  widow's 
characteristics  were  hereditary. 

Then,  too,  he  had,  during  his  recent  hermit's  life, 
come  to  stand  in  unspeakable  awe  of  getting  into  a 
dress  coat.  He  could  not  imagine  what  he  would 
have  to  say  to  a  young  girl  fresh  from  boarding- 
school.  His  cousin  could  hardly  be  such  a  refresh- 
ing example  as  that  he  had  just  met,  and  yet  he  knew 
that  civility  to  this  favourite  relative  of  his  father's, 
was  the  one  thing  that  the  authorities  at  home  would 
insist  upon.  Besides,  they  need  never  hear  of  his 
social  shortcomings  in  other  directions,  but  from  the 
character  of  Mrs.  Bartol,  as  he  had  it  by  unwilling 
hearsay,  the  most  fatuous  must  deduce  that  news  of 
any  silence  on  his  part  would  reach  Philadelphia  all 
too  soon.  If  he  were  to  stay  away  and  pretend  to  be 
absent  from  town  she  would  be  foolish  enough  to 
send  out  and  inquire  about  him,  in  which  case  the 
discovery  of  the  truth  was  too  awful  to  contemplate. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  pleaded  a  previously  made 
engagement,  she  would  renew  the  invitation  at  some 
other  and  perhaps  still  less  opportune  time. 

But  if  matters  were  uncomfortable  before,  they  were 
now  positively  bad.  He  would  simply  have  to  send 


A  JUNIOR   UNDERSTUDY.  89 

word  that  he  was  going  elsewhere,  for  go  elsewhere 
he  must.  And  the  fear  of  being  bored  for  an  hour  ot 
two  was  so  strong  in  him  that  the  thought  of  how  this 
meant  only  a  postponement  of  the  agony  made  Jarvis 
groan  in  the  spirit.  Yet  the  new  fascination  was 
powerful  with  him,  and  he  decided  that  even  with  the 
slim  chance  there  was  of  seeing  the  girl,  it  was  worth 
while  to  go  to  the  Grendome  that  night. 

He  turned  off  Winter  Street  into  Frank  Key's,  and 
found  Mallard  seated  there. 

"  Hello  !  "  he  cried.     "  You  here  ?  " 

"  No,  I  'm  not,"  replied  the  Junior,  surprised  with 
his  glass  half  way  up  to  his  lips,  "  but  I  Ve  about  as 
much  right  here  as  you  have.  What  are  you  looking 
so  dazed  about?" 

"  Oh,  it 's  that  damned  call.  I  had  arranged  to  — 
to  run  up  to  Lynn  to  see  Maggie  Du  Mar  —  she  plays 
there  to-night  —  and  this  thing  knocks  it  all  in  the 
head." 

"  Well,  sit  down  and  have  a  Scotch,  and  we  '11  see 
if  we  can  fix  it  up." 

Jarvis  pushed  aside  the  chain  of  crystals  that  hung 
before  the  alcove,  and  accepted  Mallard's  proffer, 
"  Though  I  don't  see  what  there  is  to  be  done,"  he 
ruefully  protested. 

"  Well,  I  do,"  returned  the  Junior,  with  that  air  of 
omniscience  common  to  all  Juniors. 

He  was  not  at  all  sure  that  he  did,  but  next  to  be- 


go  JARVIS  OF   HARVARD. 

ing  esteemed  an  authority  on  all  matters  pertaining 
to  his  College,  he  wanted  to  be  thought  one  upon 
everything  else.  Moreover,  he  dearly  loved  to  act  a 
farce,  and  on  the  instant  he  seemed  to  see  his  way 
open  to  some  such  an  end. 

"Er  —  how  old's  your  cousin,  Jarvis?"  he  asked, 
as  he  touched  the  button. 

"  I  don't  know.  I  told  you  this  morning  I  did  n't 
know  anything  about  her." 

"  Hum  —  what  sort  of  a  looking  girl  is  she?  " 

"I  do  not  know.  What  the  devil  do  you  want  to 
know  for?  I  don't  see  how  it's  going  to  mend 
matters  if  she  's  a  regular  Athor  for  beauty.  What 
earthly  difference  can  it  make  to  you?" 

"It  may  make  a  good  deal  of  difference  —  to  you. 
And  to  me,  too,  for  that  matter.  I  would  n't  like  to 
take  dinner  with  her  in  your  place  if  she  were  posi- 
tively ugly,  you  know." 

"  You  —  what?  "  cried  Jarvis. 

"  Here 's  the  waiter,"  prompted  Mallard  calmly. 

Dick  gave  his  order  — "  without  lemon  —  '  and 
turned  again  on  his  friend. 

"  Now,  tell  me  what  you  mean,"  he  commanded. 
"Do  you  propose  to  impersonate  me?" 

"  Well,  not  knowing  what  sort  of  a  looking  girl  she 
is,  it 's  a  bit  dangerous,  but  I  guess  I  '11  risk  it  as 
a  favour  to  you." 

"  You  better  wait  a  while,"  grumbled  Jarvis.     He 


A  JUNIOR   UNDERSTUDY.  91 

was  in  a  bad  temper ;  too  bad  to  try  to  conceal  it. 
Bat  finally  his  face  changed  and  he  smiled.  He  was 
thinking  that  he  would  not  have  wanted  his  part 
played  by  a  boor,  but  that  Mallard,  straight  as  an 
arrow,  slim  and  dark,  a  gentleman  and  by  no  means 
the  fool  he  tried  to  be,  would  make  a  very  acceptable 
understudy. 

"  No,  I  had  n't  better  wait  a  while,  either.  If  this 
thing 's  going  to  be  put  through,  we  must  arrange 
matters  at  once." 

11  You  '11  really  do  it,  then?  " 

"  Certainly  I  will.  I  '11  go  and  then  tell  'em  I  leave 
town  to-morrow." 

"  Hold  up.  No  you  won't.  She  might  write  that 
to  the  governor." 

"Well,  just  leave  it  to  me,  will  you?  See  here, 
Jarvis,  if  I  'm  to  get  you  out  of  this  hole,  you  must 
treat  me  like  your  lawyer  and  give  me  your  complete 
confidence.  I  '11  guarantee  to  fix  it  somehow." 

He  always  felt  delightfully  old  when  he  talked  to 
Jarvis  and  the  manner  of  his  listener  always  con- 
firmed the  sensation. 

"  It  would  be  rather  unpleasant  for  you  if  you 
were  discovered." 

"  So  would  it  be  for  you.     But  I  shan't  be." 

"  All  right,  then,  what  do  you  want  to  know?" 

"That's  right.  That's  business.  Now,  give  us  all 
the  details  of  the  case.  How  long  ago  did  you  say 


92  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

it  was  since  your  aunt  —  or  whatever  she  is — has 
seen  you?" 

"  About  ten  years.  But  she  's  only  a  distant  cousin, 
you  know." 

"  Has  she  any  photograph  of  you?" 

"  Not  that  I  know  of.     Oh,  I  'm  sure  not !  " 

"  There  's  no  danger  on  the  ground  of  my  appear- 
ance, then?  " 

"  Not  the  slightest." 

"  Well,  I  '11  help  you  out  and  take  the  risk  of  the 
younger  one  being  plain." 

"  I  don't  know  whether  to  thank  you  or  not.  I  'd 
half  like  to  be  in  your  place  for  the  fun  of  the  thing." 

"  Only  if  you  were,  there  would  n't  be  any  fun. 
Now,  tell  me  your  family  history." 

The  communication  of  the  necessary  details  ex- 
tended over  a  considerable  number  of  cigarettes  and 
a  calculable  portion  of  time. 

"  And  now,"  concluded  Mallard  when  all  the  pre- 
liminaries had  been  fixed  upon  and  Jarvis  had  sur- 
rendered his  card-case,  "  you  '11  be  wanting  to  get 
out  to  Lynn.  If  you  don't  hurry,  you  won't  reach 
there  before  the  afternoon  performance  begins." 

Jarvis,  as  may  well  be  imagined,  had  little  desire  to 
comply  with  this  proposal.  The  idea  of  the  Lynn 
trip  had  faded  from  his  mind  upon  the  first  sight  of 
the  girl  in  the  garden.  But  he  did  not  care  to  com- 
municate his  little  adventure  to  the  more  experienced 


A   JUNIOR   UNDERSTUDY.  93 

Mallard  and  thus  incur  that  philosopher's  ridicule. 
It  was  for  this  reason  that,  in  the  first  instance,  he 
had  substituted  his  original  plan  for  that  which  had 
actually  superseded  it,  and  he  saw  no  cause  for 
changing  his  course  of  action  now.  He  therefore  said 
that  he  was  not  in  a  hurry  to  catch  the  afternoon  per- 
formance. He  was  not  going  out  to  Cambridge  that 
day,  but  would  take  his  time  about  getting  down  to 
the  terminal  and  then  board  the  first  train  that  offered. 
But  Mallard,  on  his  part,  was  not  particularly 
pleased  with  all  this.  In  his  innermost  soul  he  was 
not  quite  sure  that  this  innocent  Freshman  was  not 
preparing  a  very  elaborate  "  sell "  for  him.  The 
details  were  peculiar,  and  Jarvis  was  evidently  nervous. 
He  had  hesitated  and  stuttered  in  his  account  and 
once  or  twice  directly  contradicted  himself,  a  fact 
that  his  auditor  decided  it  best  to  ignore.  Mallard 
had  no  mind  to  be  made  the  butt  of  this  neophyte's 
wit  and,  even  if  his  suspicions  were  not  justified,  it 
would  yet  be  as  well  to  have  the  real  cousin  safely 
out  of  town  while  the  farce  was  in  the  acting.  Yet 
what  a  perfect  victory,  what  a  double  triumph  were 
his  could  he  by  one  blow  frustrate  Jarvis'  sinister 
plans  and  at  the  same  time  take  advantage  of  them  to 
meet  his  cousin !  There  was  a  coup  d'etat,  a  story 
worth  the  telling!  If  Jarvis  intended  to  get  him  into 
a  compromising  position  and  then  sail  down  upon 
him  in  the  character  of  the  rightful  heir,  how  much 


94  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

finer  it  would  be  to  ship  his  rival  out  of  the  city  and 
turn  the  whole  thing  to  his  own  advantage.  It  would 
be  the  work  of  a  true  artist. 

"  I  have  n't  anything  to  do  just  now,"  he  said  in 
reply  to  Jarvis'  tremulous  exposition  of  his  plans. 
"  I  '11  wait  around  here  with  you  and  go  along  down 
to  the  station." 

Jarvis  sighed  resignedly.  He  saw  at  once  that,  for 
the  time  being,  there  was  nothing  to  do  but  submit 
He  had  not  an  inkling  of  Mallard's  suspicions,  but  he 
knew  that  for  the  present  it  would  be  useless  to  try  to 
shake  him  off.  If  he  were  suddenly  to  remember  an 
engagement,  this  Old  Man  of  the  Sea  would  probably 
offer  to  go  and  expect  to  be  taken  along.  There  was 
nothing  for  it  but  to  wait  a  chance. 

No  such  chance  came.  Mallard  stuck  closer  than 
a  brother.  They  lunched  at  the  Haddon  House  and 
the  unfortunate  found  himself  forced  to  go  down  to 
the  station,  to  buy  his  ticket  and  even  to  get  on  the 
train  which  promptly  started  on  its  way,  carrying  him 
out  of  the  city. 

Mallard  watched  until  the  last  coach  disappeared 
from  under  the  train-shed  and  then  walked  over  to 
the  telegraph-office  where  he  sent  a  message. 

"  It 's  risky  and  he  may  escape  yet,"  he  commented. 
"But  if  Maggie  once  gets  her  claws  on  him  he 's  safe 
for  a  while  anyway." 

This  is  what  he  had  written : 


A  JUNIOR   UNDERSTUDY.  95 

"BOSTON,  SATURDAY. 

"  To  Miss  MAGGIE  Du  MAR,  LYNN  CONCERT  HALL,  LYNN,  MASS. 
"  Am  coming  on  the  four  forty-five  train.     Meet  me. 

"JARVIS." 

The  man  who  had  been  so  summarily  shipped 
away,  wroth  both  at  himself  and  at  the  cause  of  his 
departure,  had  yet  not  been  so  mentally  upset  as  to 
neglect  to  determine  on  a  course  of  action.  When 
Jarvis  saw  the  approach  of  the  inevitable  he  had  made 
up  his  mind  to  get  off  the  train  at  Chelsea  and  this  he 
accordingly  did. 

Some  men  would  have  made  the  best  of  a  bad 
matter,  and  amused  themselves  in  the  company  of 
Miss  Du  Mar  for  at  least  a  part  of  the  afternoon. 
Perhaps,  if  they  were  very  curious  and  very  much 
afraid  of  being  laughed  at,  they  would  have  submitted 
altogether  to  the  perverse  fate  that  waves  its  iron 
wand  over  things  social.  But  Jarvis,  although  there 
are  few  men  who  stood  more  in  dread  of  ridicule,  was 
a  person  of  one  idea.  It  is  true  that  the  idea  was 
ever-changing  in  those  days,  but,  tossed  about  as  he 
then  was  by  the  squalls  and  cross-currents  of  opposing 
emotions,  he  was  always  insatiable  in  the  pursuit  of 
whatever  chanced  to  be  uppermost  in  his  mind.  At 
present  the  ruling  passion  was  to  be  at  the  Grendome 
at  eight  o'clock  that  night,  and  he  resolved  to  put 
everything  else  aside  for  the  attainment  of  that  end. 
He  did  not  dare  to  return  to  Cambridge,  however,  for 


96  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

to  be  seen  there  by  Mallard  was  to  ruin  everything. 
He  therefore  concluded  to  stay  in  Chelsea  as  long  as 
he  could  bear  the  place. 

That  was  not  for  long.  At  five  o'clock  he  had 
decided  to  return  to  Boston  by  the  trolley-car  and 
wore  out  the  long  ride  between  fears  for  the  result 
of  Mallard's  impersonation  and  condemnations  of 
his  own  folly  in  regard  to  his  tryst.  There  were  a 
thousand  dangers  surrounding  the  whole  course. 
Mallard  might  make  a  slip  in  his  talk;  his  deception 
might  be  discovered  by  some  remembered  feature  or 
missing  family  likeness.  Because  he  had  scored  a 
success  in  some  amateur  theatricals,  the  Junior  imag- 
ined that  he  could  carry  off  with  equal  eclat  anything 
in  the  way  of  histrionic  effect.  Besides,  he  might  be 
asked  to  town  again;  the  Bartols  might  come  out 
and  happen  upon  him,  and  then  ultimate  detection 
was  only  a  question  of  time. 

It  was  that  anyhow.  Mallard's  whole  plan  might 
be  only  an  imposition.  He  might  mean,  for  the  sake 
of  some  absurd  idea  of  humour,  to  unmask  Jarvis,  or, 
indeed,  he  might  at  that  moment  be  comfortably 
seated  in  his  own  room  with  no  intention  of  going  to 
town,  unfolding  to  a  few  choice  spirits  the  glorious 
ruse  he  had  "  worked  "  upon  his  friend. 

But  with  a  sudden  resolution  Jarvis  banished  all 
such  doubts  from  his  mind.  The  worst  of  them  could 
not  affect  him  until  the  morrow  and  by  that  time 


A  JUNIOR   UNDERSTUDY.  97 

almost  anything  might  intervene.  Meanwhile,  he 
was  on  a  quest  that,  successful  or  otherwise,  offered 
excitement  enough  for  one  evening. 

On  reaching  town  he  went  to  Bouy's;  ordered  a 
room,  and,  after  such  limited  toilet  as  the  accommoda- 
tions permitted,  ate  a  solitary  dinner  and  started  for 
the  Grendome. 

With  what  growing  excitement,  with  what  alterna- 
tions of  fear  and  hope,  he  drew  near  the  place  of 
meeting,  Jarvis  —  although  he  experienced  them  many 
a  time  before  and  after  —  could  yet  not  possibly  have 
told.  He  was  one  of  those  happy  beings  to  whom 
every  fresh  fancy  is  the  final  one  and  to  whom  every 
recurring  sensation  is,  beyond  analysis,  new. 

He  went  directly  to  the  nearest  parlour  and  found 
her  sitting  on  a  divan  there  in  the  shadow  of  a  far-off 
corner.  She  rose  at  once  to  meet  him  with  out- 
stretched hand. 

"  Not  late  ?  "  she  said. 

"How  could  I  be?"  he  replied,  trying  to  retain 
the  hand  which  this  time  disengaged  itself  but 
slowly. 

"  No  car  broken  down  and  the  bridge  not  open?" 

She  seated  herself  again  on  the  divan  with  a  nod  at 
a  chair  that  had  been  drawn  near  by. 

Jarvis  sat  down  beside  her  on  the  divan. 

"I  see  you  know  us,"  he  said.  "But  no  —  the 
bridge  was  not  open.  That 's  a  lie  we  keep  for 

7 


98  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

affairs  that  bore  us.  And  a  wrecked  car  or  any  such 
trifle  would  n't  have  stopped  me  to-night." 

He  tried  again  to  take  the  hand  that  was  lying 
nearest  him. 

"  There  !  "  she  cried  springing  away.  "  That  man 
saw  you !  " 

Jarvis  jumped  to  look  round.  She  was  laughing 
at  him  again  and  the  room  was  quite  empty.  He 
turned  about  to  her. 

At  that  moment  he  heard  a  familiar  voice  saying,  — 

"  Yes,  but  the  bridge  was  open.  They  always  let 
boats  through  just  when  one  is  in  a  hurry." 

He  looked  up  with  a  start.  In  the  full  light  of  the 
door  rose  the  tall  form  of  Mallard  in  evening-dress 
beside  a  little  woman  in  a  widow's  cap. 

"  Peggy>"  said  this  person,  "  come  here  and  meet 
your  cousin,  Dick  Jarvis." 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
EXPLANATIONS. 

THE  situation  was  scarcely  a  pleasant  one.  Jarvis 
was  stricken  dumb.  Mrs.  Bartol  was  smiling  and 
unconscious  of  the  trouble  that  surrounded  her. 
But  Peggy  and  Mallard  kept  their  wits.  The  girl 
walked  straight  forward  to  the  Junior. 

"  I  Ve  heard  so  much  about  you,"  she  said. 

Mallard  took  the  hand  and  bowed.  Would  he 
attempt  to  keep  up  the  farce? 

"  Not  about  me,  I  'm  afraid,"  he  answered. 

Jarvis  drew  a  deep  breath.  This  then  was  to  be 
another  of  the  man's  abominable  jokes ! 

He  need  not  have  worried,  however,  for  Mallard 
imperturbably  proceeded,  — 

"  The  fact  is,  I  'm  afraid  there  has  been  some  mis- 
take. My  name  is  Mallard." 

"  Mallard !  "  cried  both  the  women  at  once,  the 
younger  perhaps  a  shade  too  dramatically. 

"  Unfortunately,  yes.  I  just  now  sent  up  my  card 
to  an  aunt  of  mine  whom  I  had  never  seen  before  and 
I  thought  I  'd  found  her.  It  seems  I  have  n't.  If 
you  are  looking  for  Dick  Jarvis,  he  is  the  man  you 
have  just  —  been  asking  the  time  of." 


IOO  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

Jarvis  winced,  drew  his  watch  clumsily  from  his 
pocket  and  as  clumsily  replaced  it  as  he  came  forward 
to  the  now  thoroughly  bewildered  Mrs.  Bartol. 

"  Yes,  I  'm  Dick,  Cousin  Emily,"  he  said.  "  The 
boy  has  evidently  got  my  card  mixed  with  that  of 
Mr.  Mallard,  my  friend  here.  That's  all." 

He  tried  to  look  as  if  it  were  a  simple  matter  of 
every  day  occurrence,  but  his  success  was  hardly 
brilliant. 

"  Tom,"  he  went  on,  with  an  effort  and  not  daring 
to  look  in  the  face  of  his  friend,  "  you  've  often  heard 
me  speak  of  my  Cousin  Emily." 

"  Only  to-day.     And  of  her  daughter  too." 

"  Yes,  though  I  never  saw  her  before  this  minute 
—  at  least,  for  —  shall  I  say  years  ?  " 

He  shot  an  appealing  glance  at  Peggy,  who  was 
busily  engaged  in  smoothing  out  an  imaginary 
wrinkle  in  her  sleeve. 

"  I  Ve  had  to  go  out  of  town  on  business,"  he 
hurriedly  continued,  turning  to  his  elder  cousin, 
"  and  just  got  back  to  Cambridge  half  an  hour  ago. 
I  found  your  note  there  and  did  n't  want  to  keep 
you  waiting,  so  I  came  just  as  I  was.  You  see,"  he 
added  with  a  poor  attempt  at  pleasantry,  "  I  knew  it 
was  to  be  a  purely  family  party,  anyhow,"  and  he 
looked  angrily  at  Mallard. 

"  Of  course,  of  course,"  stammered  the  widow,  who 
had  thus  effectually  been  put  in  the  wrong.  "  You 


EXPLANATION'S, 


see,  I'm  getting  so  dreadfully  nearsighted.  Peggy 
will  tell  you  all  about  that.  Otherwise  I  should  have 
seen  the  mistake  in  a  moment.  Come  over  here  to 
the  light.  The  very  image  of  your  poor  mother." 
(She  always  used  the  invidious  adjective  of  people 
who  did  not  like  her.)  "  Not  a  bit  changed.  You  're 
not  too  old  to  kiss,  I  suppose  ?  " 

There  being  but  one  answer  to  these  propositions 
from  a  distant  relative,  Jarvis  permitted  the  caress, 
while  a  glance  from  the  tail  of  his  eye  satisfied  him 
that  his  audience  was  amused  by  the  ceremony. 

"  And  we  won't  keep  the  dinner,  either,"  continued 
Mrs.  Bartol.  "  You  '11  join  us,  of  course,  Mr.  —  er  — 
Mallard?" 

"  Oh,  Mallard  has  an  aunt  to  see,"  objected  Jarvis, 
who  felt  that  somebody  had  injured  him  and  that  his 
friend  regarded  him  in  no  pleasant  light. 

A  hall-boy  was  going  through  the  room,  and  Mallard 
turned  to  him.  Then  he  replied,  — 

"  I  find  my  relative  has  gone  away  and  forsaken  me 
rather  unexpectedly.  Yes,  Mrs.  Bartol,  I  'd  be  very 
glad  of  such  a  recompense  for  an  otherwise  fruitless 
trip  to  town." 

"  I  thought,  Dick,  you  said  Mrs.  Bartol  was  at  an- 
other hotel,"  he  maliciously  added  as,  a  moment  later, 
they  sat  down  to  dinner. 

"  Oh,"  asked  Peggy,  gallantly  coming  to  the  rescue, 
"  he  got  the  word  we  left  for  him  there  —  did  n't  you  ?  " 


IQ2    :  V  J  ARILS'  OF   HARVARD. 

Jarvis'  eyes  were  a  message  of  gratitude,  as  he 
replied. 

"  Dear  me,  yes.  I  found  you  had  gone  when  I  got 
there." 

"  Well,  you  see,  we  decided  to  stay  here  for  a  few 
days  and  mamma  likes  this  place  so  well,  and  we 
hadn't  time  to  let  you  know  beforehand.  We 
did  n't  think  a  messenger-boy  would  get  you  in  time. 
Mamma,  you  know,  always  does  things  of  a  sudden." 
Much  of  Peggy's  time  was  employed  in  explaining 
her  mother. 

Jarvis  began  to  see  light  and  to  breathe  freer. 
Things  went  off  smoothly  enough  then,  and,  as 
Mallard  was  so  considerate  as  to  devote,  after  dinner, 
his  whole  attention  to  Mrs.  Bartol,  thereby  heaping 
coals  of  fire  on  the  head  of  his  friend,  the  confused 
Freshman  got  a  chance  to  talk  to  the  younger  of  his 
hostesses. 

The  Junior,  however,  could  not  have  had  a  very 
happy  hour  of  it.  Dick's  father  and  her  own 
daughter  were  the  only  two  persons  who  would  not 
have  been  bored  by  Mrs.  Bartol.  Their  devotion  was 
regarded  by  their  acquaintances  as  one  of  those 
attachments  called  "  beautiful,"  a  tacit  slur  upon 
the  object,  and  left  further  undiscussed  as  subjects 
beyond  the  possibilities  of  analysis.  She  would  not, 
perhaps,  have  been  unendurable  had  not  the  iron  of 
Calvinistic  environment  entered  too  early  in  life  into 


EXPLANATIONS.  IO3 

her  soul,  but  the  surroundings  of  her  childhood  had 
done  their  work  with  assiduous  proficiency,  and  she 
was  now  one  of  those  terribly  proper  matrons  who 
lower  their  voices  when  they  speak  of  navel  oranges. 
The  humility  which  is  the  immodesty  of  the  humble 
was  hers,  and  this,  taken  in  conjunction  with  her 
mourning,  was  a  perpetual  offence.  We  are  much 
more  anxious  to  make  our  neighbours  envy  our  happi- 
ness than  to  enjoy  it  ourselves,  and  to  make  them 
envy  our  distress  is  indeed  a  masterstroke  of  social 
diplomacy.  That  stroke  Peggy's  mother  had  per- 
fectly achieved.  Her  outward  tokens  of  woe  were  in 
inverse  ratio  to  the  gaiety  of  others,  and  her  own  en- 
joyment of  the  occasion.  Her  grief  for  the  late 
General  was  of  the  cloth  only;  and,  more  noticeable 
than  all  her  other  shortcomings  was  a  purely  phys- 
ical one.  She  was  afflicted  with  that  fatal  combination, 
—  a  too  short  upper  lip  and  a  keen  sense  of  the  ludi- 
crous in  others. 

While  Mallard  was  dealing  with  this  formidable 
armament,  Dick  was  trying  to  push  his  investigations 
in  another  quarter. 

"  Did  you  really  expect  me  here  to-night?"  he 
asked  of  Peggy. 

"Why  not?  You  got  our  first  note,  didn't  you? 
It  was  mailed  last  night.  That  was  time  enough  to 
get  you  here." 

"  Oh,  come  now !  You  know  what  I  mean." 


IO4  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

"Do  you?" 

"  I  think  I  do,  but  the  whole  thing  is  so  muddled 
that  I  would  n't  be  too  certain  of  it." 

"  Well,  I  'm  still  feeling  pretty  much  the  same  way, 
so  you  must  make  your — what  do  you  call  it?  — 
cross-examination?  —  as  easy  as  you  can,  please." 

"  Then  just  tell  me  this,  did  you  know  me  all  along?" 

"Isn't  that  rude?" 

"  It  may  be  conceited." 

"  Well,'  then,  I  thought  I  did,  but  when  mamma 
came    in    with    Mr.     Mallard     I     told    myself   that 
Mr.  Richard  Jarvis,  of  whom    I  Ve  heard  so  much, 
wouldn't  accost  a  woman  in  a  place  where  her  — 
where  she  would  n't  be  if — 

"  Pshaw  !    You  must  be  easy  on  me  too,  you  know. 
How  was  it  you  knew  me?  " 

"  You  '11  never  believe  me  now." 

"Yes  I  shall." 

"  Can  you  promise  that  ?  " 

"  At  all  events,  I  have  the  will  to  believe." 

"  By  your  photograph,  then." 

"  My  photograph?  " 

"Um — Uncle  Richard  sent  us  one  that  you  had 
taken  just  before  you  left  Philadelphia." 

"What,  those  hideous  things?  "     He  recalled  them 
with  a  thrill  of  horror. 

"  Do  you  want  me  to  commit  myself  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Why,  I  thought  I  'd  burned  them,  every  one !  " 


EXPLANATIONS.  IO5 

"  Then  this  was  snatched  from  the  burning.  They 
were  n't  very  good,  that 's  a  fact,  and  I  did  take  a 
very  long  chance ;  but  then  I  was  almost  sure  it  was 
you  and  when  you  sat  down,  I  saw  the  crest  on  your 
ring." 

"  So  you  were  making  game  of  me  all  the  while  ?  " 

"  You  were  making  game  of  yourself,  and  you 
deserved  all  the  punishment  you  got." 

"  And  a  good  deal  more,"  said  Jarvis  with  some 
mental  additions. 

The  strain  ws.s  still  too  great  for  him  to  remain 
with  her  long,  but  it  was  by  no  means  too  great  to 
prohibit  his  return.  On  the  contrary,  his  visits  to  the 
Grendome  grew  more  and  more  frequent  and  those 
other  trips  to  town  more  and  more  rare.  Indeed,  the 
only  real  difficulty  that  grew  out  of  the  imbroglio  was 
that  of  explaining  it  all  to  Mallard,  a  bit  of  work 
which  —  as  he  did  not  want  to  give  the  real  parti- 
culars of  the  first  meeting  in  the  Public  Gardens, 
kept  Jarvis  busily  employed  for  the  next  week. 

Day  by  day  during  that  week  he  saw  more  and 
more  of  Peggy.  The  acquaintance  prospered.  They 
came  very  easily  to  calling  each  other  by  their  first 
names  and  took  daringly  most  of  the  more  trying 
initial  steps.  Though  from  an  intellectual  point  of 
view  she  was  anything  but  a  surprise,  she  had,  at 
times,  a  sharp  tongue  that  delighted  him.  She  was 
certainly  neither  deep  nor  well  read,  but  she  was  just 


IO6  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

as  surely  a  wonderful  puzzle.  With  no  false  ideas 
of  reserve  or  convention,  with  a  perfect  freedom 
of  expression  and  an  utter  disregard  of  the  more 
artificial  proprieties,  she  revealed  to  him  in  all  its 
brilliance  the  enchanting  open-air  girlhood  of  the 
Middle  West.  A  product  of  the  city,  she  had  yet 
about  her  the  fragrance  of  the  prairie,  the  pungency 
of  the  mountain  pine.  Try  as  he  would,  he  could 
not  understand  her.  The  challenge  she  was  con- 
tinually setting  to  all  his  notions  of  a  woman's  proper 
bearing  in  which  he  had  grown  up  would  at  one 
time  strike  him  as  a  pose  and  again  as  real  ignor- 
ance, but  at  no  time  palled  upon  him.  Indiscreet 
as  she  undoubtedly  was,  he  was  never  so  low  as  to 
suspect  anything  worse  of  her.  But  he  did  not  once 
assign  her  to  her  real  cause.  He  could  only  admit 
her  complete  fascination  for  him,  and  there  he  was 
generally  content  to  let  his  speculations  rest,  recog- 
nising that  in  all  things  she  presented  an  absolute 
contrast  to  the  woman  he  was  trying  to  forget. 

That  forgetfulness  he  could  not  absolutely  attain. 
There  were  days,  of  course,  when  the  elasticity  of 
his  boyish  nature  and  the  new  atmosphere  that  sur- 
rounded him  would  remove  Mary  Braddock  to  the 
shadowy  background  of  his  mental  pictures.  But  he 
was  always  conscious  that  she  was  there  and  her  pres- 
ence cast  a  menacing  shadow  over  all  his  thoughts. 
At  other  times  the  despair  and  pity  of  it  all,  the 


EXPLANATIONS.  IO? 

sense  of  utter  loss  and  hopelessness,  would  overcome 
and  master  him,  driving  him  from  excess  to  excess 
in  the  mad  dissipations  of  remorse. 

Simple  policy  and  the  desire  of  a  conditional  peace 
with  himself  did  for  him  what  a  dead  hope  could  not 
accomplish.  He  began  to  find  the  hours  when  he 
was  most  at  rest  —  when  his  first  blighting  mistake 
was  most  nearly  forgotten  and  his  subsequent  crime 
as  an  Undergraduate  was  farthest  from  his  mind,— 
were  those  that  he  spent  with  Peggy  Bartol.  It  was 
then  that  he  came  closest  to  a  better  and  truer  view 
of  things.  The  contact  with  her  fresh,  keen  pleasure 
in  existence,  the  breathing  in  of  the  pure  air  of  that 
healthy  atmosphere  in  which  she  seemed  to  live, 
changed  him  in  spite  of  himself.  Was  it  quite  sure 
that  even  now  there  was  no  hope  ? 


CHAPTER  IX. 

DESTINY'S    POST   FACTO. 

His  brief  interview  at  the  Office  had  made  it  clear 
to  Jarvis  that  if  he  meant  to  remain  in  College  he 
must  pay  renewed  attention  to  his  studies,  and  this 
course  of  action  rendered  it  impossible  for  him  not 
to  come  into  contact,  however  formally,  with  the 
fellows  who,  since  his  desertion  from  the  Class  team, 
had  not  troubled  to  seek  him  out.  He  dreaded  the 
experience,  but,  once  endured,  he  found  it  —  thanks 
to  the  mercy  that  tempers  even  Undergraduate  jus- 
tice —  not  so  evil  as  he  had  feared. 

The  men  grew,  if  not  at  once  warmer,  at  least 
perceptibly  less  cold.  They  did  not,  as  Stannard 
put  it,  "  give  him  the  marble  heart."  Jarvis,  besides, 
was  really  what  is  known  as  a  good  fellow.  He  was 
even  more  mature  than  the  majority  of  his  acquaint- 
ances—  that  was  the  necessary  consequence  of  his 
solitary  bringing-up  —  but  he  was  also  frank,  simple, 
natural  with  them,  and  had  the  unconscious  trick 
of  meeting  most  of  his  friends  half  way  on  their 
chosen  ground.  Above  all,  he  was  not,  with  the 
5nost  of  them,  serious. 


DESTINY'S   POST  FACTO.  109 

Thus  in  time  there  came  again  the  games  of  pool 
at  Sanborn's  where  his  classmates  congregated  and 
from  the  upper  classmen,  that  occasional,  "Well, 
how 're  you  getting  along?"  that  is  always  asked  of 
a  Freshman  whose  people  one  cannot  avoid  knowing. 
The  climax,  however,  was  reached  when  Hardy  one 
evening  hurried  down  to  borrow  a  collar. 

"  It  was  a  hell  of  a  thing  for  you  to  do,"  he  re- 
marked, when  Jarvis  had  finally  vouchsafed  a  proud 
and  partial  explanation  of  his  recent  backslidings. 
"  But  I  dare  say  you  're  sorry  for  it,  even  if  you 
won't  say  so,  and  since  you  really  did  n't  understand 
what  it  meant,  I  '11  try  to  —  to  square  you." 

Jarvis  had  told  him  shortly  not  to  bother,  but  he 
did  bother  and,  by  the  time  the  offender  gave  in  his 
rooms  the  inevitable  tea  to  Mrs.  Bartol  and  her 
daughter,  he  was  again  persona  grata  with  the  most 
of  his  acquaintances. 

That  tea  had  been,  Jarvis  persuaded  himself,  a 
gathering  enough  mixed  to  give  a  stranger  a  fair 
idea  of  the  multitudinous  quality  of  Harvard  life. 
There  were  men  there  who  were  trying  for  the 
"  Crimson  "  and  the  "  Advocate  "  and  men  who  were 
trying  for  nothing  at  all ;  men  who  belonged  to  all 
of  the  few  clubs  possible  for  a  Freshman,  and  others 
who  would  never  belong  to  any;  two  reconciled 
members  of  the  Class  football  team,  and  one  who 
would  probably  make  the  'Varsity. 


HO  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

They  talked  of  none  of  these  things,  however,  and, 
having  exhausted  the  recent  football  victory  over 
Pennsylvania  —  which  Jarvis  had  suddenly  felt  his 
studies  would  not  allow  him  to  witness  —  and  again 
and  again  predicted  another  17  to  o  game  with  Yale, 
there  was  little  left  to  say. 

When  it  was  all  over  and  his  relatives  had  been 
with  him  to  town  to  dine,  the  two  younger  persons 
went  to  one  of  the  series  of  concerts  given  by  the 
Symphony  Orchestra  in  Sanders'.  Mrs.  Bartol  was 
to  have  accompanied  them,  but  she  had  stopped  at 
the  house  of  a  Cambridge  friend,  and  had  there,  at  the 
last  moment,  been  fortunately  attacked  with  one  of 
the  nervous  headaches  that  she  considered  her  pecu- 
liar prerogative.  Arranging  to  have  her  carriage 
meet  them,  she,  therefore,  remained  behind,  and  char- 
acteristically allowed  the  two  other  members  of  the 
little  theatre  party  to  go  on  without  her. 

The  programme  had  been  long  and  a  trifle  weari- 
some to  Peggy,  who  had  not  that  interest  in  music 
which,  quite  apart  from  any  technical  knowledge, 
attached  itself  in  a  purely  general  way  to  the  artistic 
side  of  Jarvis'  nature.  She  would  have  been  in- 
clined to  a  revolt  of  frivolity  had  not  the  last  two 
selections  proved  of  a  more  popular  and  appealing 
character  than  their  predecessors.  Jarvis,  for  his  part, 
had,  however,  enjoyed  it  all  with  the  keen  satisfac- 
tion of  a  true  amateur  that  had  been  marred  only 


DESTINY'S  POST  FACTO.  Ill 

by  the  title  of  the  last  composition  to  be  played. 
This  stared  him  in  the  face  on  first  looking  at 
his  programme  and  stood  Jike  a  spectre  at  the 
feast  through  the  whole  performance.  It  was  the 
"Traume"  of  Wagner. 

That  composition  was  for  him  ominous,  even 
terrifying.  In  the  first  instance,  reminiscent  of  the 
idealised  days  of  the  past  summer,  when  he  had 
originally  made  its  acquaintance,  it  had  become  so 
inextricably  interwoven  with  the  catastrophe  so  lately 
passed,  as  to  be  regarded  as  its  very  mainspring  and 
cause.  Its  weird  character,  that  admits  so  perfectly 
of  two  so  antipathetic  interpretations,  had  for  him  but 
one.  Every  note  was  branded  on  his  memory,  every 
chord  pregnant  with  his  doom.  In  that  company  in 
which  he  came  nearest  to  forgetting  the  disaster,  he 
could  not  have  borne  to  listen  to  that  disaster's  herald 
and  in  a  nervous  panic  of  fear  he  was  vainly  seeking 
some  pretext  for  flight  when,  at  the  last  moment,  the 
programme  —  for  some  occult  reason,  patent  only  to 
the  leaders  of  orchestras  —  was  changed,  and  for 
the  significant  strains  of  Wagner  was  substituted 
Schumann's  "  Traumerei." 

The  pure,  gentle  air  was  played  as  only  two  orches- 
tras in  America  can  play  it.  The  composition  may 
not  be  music  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word  —  there 
are  "critics"  who  go  so  far  as  to  say  so  —  but  it 
never  fails  of  its  effect.  To  Jarvis,  disassociated  in 


112  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

his  mind  though  it  was  from  all  its  maker's  history, 
the  minor  chords  appealed  so  directly  as  to  make, 
for  the  first  time  since  his  misfortune,  the  tears  spring 
into  his  eyes.  In  a  moment  he  felt  supremely  foolish, 
but  he  had  felt  first,  and  continued  to  feel,  almost 
happy.  Surely  there  was  something  still  to  be  won ; 
surely  a  man  can  purge  himself  in  the  end. 

Even  upon  the  less  impressionable  Peggy  the  effect 
was  not  thrown  away,  and  as  they  passed  from  the 
theatre  she  was  more  serious  and  less  trivial  than  he 
had  ever  known  her.  He  ordered  the  carriage  to 
drive  around  to  Harvard  Square  and  they  strolled 
slowly  about  the  Yard. 

It  was  a  clear,  cold  night.  Walking  under  the 
silent  trees  along  one  of  the  many  intersecting  paths 
of  the  almost  deserted  Quadrangle,  they  could  see  the 
stars  gleaming  through  the  bare  branches  above 
them.  Peggy  snuggled  up  in  her  opera  cloak  and 
moved  a  trifle  closer,  holding  tight  to  his  arm. 

"  What  a  delightful  place  it  is,"  she  said,  tritely 
enough,  "  and  what  good  times  you  must  have  here." 

He  reflected  on  the  days  just  passed. 

"  Not  always,"  he  rejoined.  "  It  gets  rather  stupid 
some  times." 

"Why,  the  Yale  men  who  were  always  hanging 
about  Farmington,  never  talked  that  way  about  their 
college." 

"They  were  more  discreet,  that's  alL" 


DESTINY'S   POST   FACTO.  11^ 

Then  he  added,  with  a  motion  toward  the  darkened 
windows  of  Thayer,  — 

"  Lipmann,  the  new  candidate  for  half-back,  lives  in 
that  corner  room." 

Peggy  paused  and  raised  herself  on  tiptoe  to  take 
in  what  she  could  of  the  lion's  den,  and  then,  as  they 
slowly  resumed  their  walk,  turned  to  Jarvis  with,  — 

"  Oh,  Dick,  why  don't  you  go  in  for  something  of 
that  kind?  You  wouldn't  find  it  a  bore  ever  then." 

Jarvis  smiled.  It  was  upon  him  to  make  a  bitter 
reference  to  his  one  venture  in  that  direction,  but 
instead  he  only  said,  - 

"  It  takes  two,  in  fact,  a  whole  dozen  of  coaches 
to  make  that  bargain." 

"  But  you  could  do  it." 

Although  at  such  times  he  regarded  her  as  a  very 
little  girl,  he  could  not  help  being  flattered. 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  I  'm  sure  of  it.  You  're  built  for  it,  if  ever  any- 
body was,  and  you're  not  doing  anything  here 
now." 

This  was  hardly  complimentary.  Besides,  it  was 
undoubtedly,  in  a  sense,  true ;  so  that  it  was  not 
without  a  touch  of  pique  that  he  replied  with  the 
dreary  commonplace  that  they  did  not  consider  foot- 
ball everything  at  Harvard. 

"Oh,  no  !  That 's  the  way  you  all  talk.  But  they 
consider  it  something  outside,  and  I  don't  want  to  go 


lI4  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

away  and  tell  people,  when  they  ask  about  my  cousin 
here,  that  he  is  n't  doing  anything  at  all." 

"  He 's  just  now  in  a  way  of  getting  an  A  in  his 
English,  at  any  rate,"  replied  that  relative.  He 
was  flattered  again  and  his  self-confidence  restored. 
Nevertheless,  he  felt  constrained  to  add,  — 

"  The  trouble  with  you  is  that  you  're  not  yet 
closely  enough  associated  with  this  place  to  under- 
stand it.  Even  I  haven't  been  here  long  enough 
to  catch  it  thoroughly." 

"  It's  not  like  Yale,"  she  confessed. 

"  No,  it 's  not.     Everything 's  different." 

"  I  've  noticed  the  men  were.  The  typical  man 
here  —  " 

"  There  is  no  typical  Harvard  man.  You  hear  a 
good  deal  about  him,  but  he  's  a  myth.  The  only 
real  type  about  Cambridge  is  the  landlady  and  she  is 
simply  inexpressible.  No,"  he  continued,  "  the  differ- 
ence is  away  deep  down  somewhere,  but  you,  of 
course,  notice  it  mostly  on  the  surface." 

"  Perhaps,  but  you  somehow  don't  seem  to  be  as 
good  friends  here." 

They  had  reached  Gray's  and  now  turned  back 
again. 

"  That  is  still  on  the  surface,"  he  corrected  her. 
"  If  I  have  to  rescue  from  the  police  a  classmate  I 
haven't  met  before  and  am  not  likely  to  meet  again, 
that  does  n't  create  a  bond  of  sympathy  strong  enough 


DESTINY'S  POST   FACTO  II  $ 

to  make  us  comrades  for  life.  He  thanks  me  civilly, 
and  unless  we  've  got  something  in  common  —  some- 
thing real,  I  mean  —  there 's  an  end  of  it.  That 
would  n't  be  so  in  some  places,  but  it 's  so  here,  and 
why  should  n't  it  be?  " 

"  Yet  there  are  lots  of  men  who  go  through  here 
and  never  know  a  soul." 

"  They  are  not  many,  and  they  generally  are  un- 
sociable. You  don't  want  to  know  a  man  and  he 
does  n't  want  to  know  you.  You  have  nothing  that 
you  're  both  interested  in,  and  will  never  have  till  the 
days  of  your  deaths,  so  why  should  you  lick-spittle 
each  other  just  because  you  happen  to  room  across  a 
nine-foot  hall  and  behind  a  locked  door?" 

"  But  how  are  you  to  know  if  he  's  sociable  or  not?  " 

"  That  vs  a  thing  that  usually  shows  for  itself.  Even 
such  men  as  you  talk  of,  will  tell  you  that  Harvard  is 
their  ideal  college  —  and  they  '11  mean  it,  too.  As 
for  meeting  men,  the  best  way  is  to  borrow  tobacco. 
Seriously,  though,  we  just  don't  believe  in  the  theory 
that  you  have  to  know  every  man  in  your  Class  well 
enough  to  call  him  by  an  insulting  nickname." 

They  laughed  a  little,  but  presently  Peggy  asked, 

"  Is  n't  that  a  symptom  of  Harvard  mistrust  or  un- 
belief?" 

"  Perhaps,"  he  answered,  "  I  don't  know.  Any- 
how, Harvard  unbelief  is  probably  a  finer  belief  than 
most  who  mouth  and  drool  about  it  are  capable  of." 


II 6  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

They  had  come  back  across  the  Yard  again,  and 
now  turned  down  toward  Claverly,  sending  the  car- 
nage ahead.  Almost  at  the  steps  was  another  cab 
with  Mrs.  Bartol  inside  of  it. 

Peggy  imperiously  refused  all  of  Jarvis'  offers  to 
accompany  them,  but  before  she  quite  reached  the 
carnage  door  and  the  limited  range  of  her  mother's 
auditory  powers,  she  added  to  him,  — 

"  Now,  don't  forget  what  I  said  about  the  foot- 
ball. It's  quite  for  the  honour  of  the  family,  you 
see." 

"  And  not  at  all  for  the  honour  of  any  particular 
member  of  it?"  he  asked. 

"  For  yourself,"  she  said. 

"And  no  one  else?" 

"  Perhaps  —  I  don't  know  them  all.  But,  oh  yes, 
I  know  mamma  would  like  it  ever  so  much." 

"  Well,  it 's  too  late  to  begin  this  year,  perhaps 
too  late  for  next." 

"  Oh,  it's  never  too  late  to  begin." 

She  sprang  into  the  second  carriage;  there  were 
hasty  inquiries  after  Mrs.  Bartol's  head;  a  hurried 
good  night,  and  the  cab  rattled  away,  leaving  Jarvis 
standing  upon  the  curb. 

He  filled  and  lit  his  pipe,  walking  slowly  back  the 
way  they  had  come.  Was  it  never  too  late?  As  lie- 
paced  back  and  forth  through  the  Yard  he  saw  in  its 
true  light  the  life  that  he  had  been  leading.  Those  care- 


DESTINY'S   POST  FACTO.  If? 

less  words  of  a  laughing  girl,  had  they  not  a  deeper, 
higher,  meaning  than  she  had  thought  to  give  them? 

The  solemn  old  buildings  looked  down  at  him 
through  the  heavy  shadows,  here  and  there  a  lu- 
minous window  now  breaking  their  black  fronts.  He 
thought  of  the  countless  men  they  had  sheltered  and 
watched  in  the  long  years  they  had  stood  there,  these 
austere  Puritan  warders  of  the  place.  How  many 
strong  hearts  and  honest  lives  had  gone  out  from 
them,  and  made  the  world  the  better  for  their  Har- 
vard life !  How  many,  through  disappointment  and 
defeat,  had  stood  unnoted  but  true,  because  of  the 
lesson  they  had  learned  here  !  They,  too,  unknow- 
ing, had  left  their  country  better  than  they  found  it. 
Success  was  possible,  it  was  even  finer,  without  the 
reward  his  old  dreams  had  pictured  for,  and  made 
an  integral  part  of  it.  In  the  end,  it  was  the  effort 
and  not  the  reward  that  made  the  success.  It  was 
well,  it  was  only  right,  to  set  up  altars  in  the  market- 
place for  those  great  men  who  had  won  the  reward  as 
well ;  but  was  it  not  even  better,  was  it  not  esthetic- 
ally  nobler,  to  remember  also  those  other  and  name- 
less ones,  the  stronger  that  they  fought  on  after  al) 
hope  of  the  victor's  crown  was  quite  gone ;  men  who, 
falling  unheeded  and  in  legions  like  the  drops  of 
summer  rain,  refreshed  and  purified  the  earth  that 
never  offered  recompense  or  praise? 

And  the  other  ones  ?     Was  he  to   be  one  of  those 


Il8  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

who  changed  the  "  Veritas "  for  "Libido?"  He 
knew  that  he  was  not  learning  the  real  lesson  of  Har- 
vard ;  that  he  had  in  this  short  while  seen  only  the 
reverse  side  of  the  College  life ;  that  he  had  joined 
himself  to  the  smaller  and  meaner  portion  of  it. 
Mistaking  vulgarity  for  Bohemianism,  he  had  not 
wanted  to  see  any  other  side,  to  belong  to  any  other 
part.  His  artistic  sense,  distorted,  deformed,  had 
been  crazed  as  well,  and  now,  in  the  crisp  night  air, 
before  these  hideous  old  buildings,  made  beautiful  by 
night  and  memory,  the  thoughtless  phrase  of  a  pure 
girl,  had  brought  it  back  to  sanity. 

He  turned  about  again  toward  his  rooms.  His 
heart  was  light,  his  head  clear,  and  his  step  firm.  If 
high  purpose  and  hard  work,  if  right  for  the  love  of 
right,  could  purge  a  man  from  his  sin,  could  free  him 
from  himself,  Jarvis  would  be  purged  and  freed. 

And  yet,  somewhere  at  the  bottom  of  his  soul,  there 
lurked  a  misgiving,  a  fear. 

He  did  not  want  to  be  alone,  but  on  the  other 
hand,  not  wishing  to  talk  to  either  the  sensual  Mal- 
lard or  the  cynical  Major,  he  rang  up  Hardy  and 
called  through  the  tube  for  him  to  come  down  and 
have  a  smoke.  Even  latterly  he  had  seen  but  little 
of  the  Philadelphian,  for  Hardy,  though  by  no  means 
a  particularly  good  or  unusually  studious  person,  was 
conspicuously  lacking  in  that  sort  of  courage  which 
dissipation  seems  to  require.  He  was,  however. 


DESTINY'S   POST   FACTO.  1 19 

always  glad  to  talk  extravagantly  on  morals  and 
religion,  so  that  fifteen  minutes  found  both  the  lads 
comfortably  ensconced  before  Jarvis'  study  fire,  pipe 
in  mouth  and  glass  in  hand,  the  death-mask  of  Vol- 
taire leering  sardonically  at  them  in  the  flickering 
light  cast  by  the  crackling  logs. 

"That's  good  stuff,"  said  Hardy,  tentatively,  hold- 
ing up  his  glass  between  his  eyes  and  the  grate. 
"  Where  did  you  get  it?  " 

"  My  father  sent  it  up.    It 's  some  he  has  imported." 

"  It 's  away  over  anything  you  can  get  in  town. 
And,  speaking  of  town,  have  you  seen  Maggie 
Du  Mar  lately?" 

"  No,  I  have  n't  been  running  that  kind  of  thing  for 
a  while." 

"What's  the  trouble?  Getting  scared  for  your 
Mid-Year's  before  Christmas?" 

"  No,  I  don't  care  about  it,  that 's  all." 

"  Mallard's  afraid  of  his.  He  's  a  regular  model  of 
propriety  now. ' 

"  Does  n't  he  go  into  town  at  all,  —  except  the 
times  he's  been  in  with  me?" 

"  Yes,  but  only  once  in  a  while.  You  none  of  you 
can  quit  for  good,  if  that 's  what  you  mean." 

"What's  that?"  asked  Jarvis,  looking  quickly  and 
intently  into  the  pink  face  of  his  interlocutor. 

It  was  exactly  what  he  had  wanted  to  talk  about ; 
exactly  what  he  felt  he  must  ask  somebody  if  only  to 


I2O  JAR  VIS   OF   HARVARD. 

relieve  his  strained  nerves.  He  would  not  have  dared 
to  open  the  subject,  but  he  was  all  attention  as  Hardy 
continued,  — 

"  I  mean  a  fellow  often  gets  well  started  up  hill  and 
stops  short  of  the  top,  but  once  he  begins  to  fall  he 
rarely  brings  up  short  of  the  bottom." 

"  I  don't  believe  it,"  replied  Jarvis  brusquely.  "  I 
think  a  man  can  stop  himself  and  be  just  as  good  as 
anybody  who  never  started  down." 

"  In  rare  cases,  perhaps  yes.  But  as  a  rule  the 
attraction  of  gravitation  does  all  that  is  necessary  for 
the  rolling  stone." 

"  You  think  the  world  apt  to  unite  in  kicking  it  on 
down?  Well,  I  had  always  believed  a  poor  devil 
might  become  an  angel  if  he  chose." 

"  Hardly.  You  see,  he  can't  persistently  choose. 
The  world  has  n't  much  pity.  It  has  too  many  other 
things  to  think  about  and  prefers  to  think  of  the 
dirty  ones." 

"Hasn't  it  any  sympathy,  then?"  asked  Jarvis, 
smiling  again. 

As  he  spoke,  the  door  opened  without  a  pre- 
monitory knock  and  the  Major  came  in. 

"  Sympathy,  my  poor  chap,"  he  exclaimed,  divest- 
ing himself  of  his  overcoat  and  drawing  a  chair 
toward  the  hearth,  "  The  world  's  full  of  it,  —  and 
it 's  worth  about  ten  cents  on  the  dollar  ! " 

Jarvis  was  not  pleased  with  the  interruption.     He 


DESTINY'S    POST   FACTO.  121 

had  sought  some  sort  of  confirmation  of  his  new 
hopes,  and  now  the  Major  had  intruded  with  an  air 
that  left  neither  of  the  others  at  ease. 

But  the  newcomer  was  quite  unmoved  by  his 
reception  and,  lighting  a  cigarette,  proceeded  to 
carry  on  the  conversation  in  his  own  behalf. 

"  You  might  think,"  he  went  on,  "  that  they  'd  at 
least  owe  us  a  genuine  pity  in  return  for  the  awful 
example  we  make  of  ourselves,  but  those  who  bene- 
fit by  us  in  this  mortal  life  do  not,  unfortunately, 
receive  our  sacrifices  at  our  own  valuation." 

"  That 's  just  what  I  'm  telling  him,"  said  Hardy, 
thawing  a  little.  "  It 's  no  use.  The  only  thing  to  do 
is  to  live  our  own  lives  as  we  can't  help  living 
them.  There 's  a  destiny  that  misshapes  our  ends, 
smooth-polish  them  how  we  will." 

"  But  I  Ve  no  faith  in  Kismet,"  Jarvis  objected. 
"  A  man  can  have  some  very  good  things  in  him,  of 
course,  and  still  go  wrong  and  still  fight  his  way 
back." 

"  If  that's  his  fate,"  the  Major  interpolated. 

"  It  never  is,"  Hardy  put  in. 

"  There 's  a  law  in  fate  as  in  everything  else." 

"  No,  whether  it 's  fate  or  not,"  persisted  Jarvis, 
with  the  irrational  stubbornness  of  the  penitent, 
"  ability  is  pretty  sure  to  make  its  mark  in  the 
end." 

"It's  good  fortune  and  not  worth  or  ability  that 


122  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

wins  the  admiration  of  the  crowd,"  said  Hardy, 
catching  something  of  the  Major's  spirit  and  endeav- 
ouring to  shine  by  his  light. 

"  And  the  crowd,"  said  the  Major,  with  his  final 
air,  "  is  the  only  close  corporation  that  really  pays 
for  what  it  wants." 

"  Of  course,"  Jarvis  tried  to  define,  "it  all  depends 
on  what  you  mean  by  going  wrong.  I  used  to  have 
the  idea  that  the  artist  couldn't  go  wrong;  that  his 
soul  should  be  a  kind  of  prism,  reflecting  and  disinte- 
grating every  passion  and  phase  of  life." 

"  And  it 's  the  right  one  and  very  well  put.  In  the 
end,  what's  the  difference?  Junius  says  that  he 
never  knew  a  rogue  that  was  not  unhappy.  But  the 
rule  must  be  a  poor  one,  for  it  does  n't  work  both 
ways." 

"  But,"  insisted  Jarvis,  in  a  voice  that  trembled, 
despite  his  internal  condemnation  of  its  foolish  timid- 
ity, "  how  can  a  man  offer  himself  to  a  pure  woman, 
unless,  of  course,  he's  done  his  penance  as  I  said? 
Such  a  marriage  must  be  a  failure  in  the  end,  what- 
ever you  think  of  the  rights  of  a  woman  to  expect  as 
much  as  she  gives." 

"  Oh,  she  '11  believe  in  you  and,  if  she  believes, 
what's  the  difference?  Belief  is  at  best  only  giving 
an  unsupported  theory  the  benefit  of  the  doubt." 

Hardy  knocked  the  ashes  from  his  pipe  and  rose 
to  go. 


DESTINY'S   POST   FACTO.  123 

"  The  failure  of  marriage,  Dick,"  he  said  sententi- 
ously,  "  is  of  course  a  tragedy,  but  it 's  a  vulgar  one, 
look  at  it  how  you  will.  Meanwhile,  avoid  it  by 
taking  Punch  's  advice,  or  by  keeping  well  in  mind 
Thomas  of  Malmesbury :  '  There  's  no  action  of  man 
in  this  life  which  is  not  the  beginning  of  so  long  a 
chain  of  consequences  as  no  human  providence  is 
high  enough  to  give  a  prospect  of  the  end.'  My 
namesake  uses  it  somewhere.  Good  night  and  don't 
try  to  run  away  from  yourself.  You  can't  do  it  and 
you  're  interesting  only  as  you  are." 


CHAPTER  X. 
EXIT  A  BOY. 

PEGGY  left  Boston  shortly  after  the  concert  and 
Jarvis  was  a  trifle  depressed.  He  did  not,  however, 
know  why  he  should  be  so  until  the  Yale  game  and 
then  he  attributed  his  low  spirits  to  that  fiasco. 

For  that  game  did  not  result  in  a  Harvard  victory  < 
In  fact,  it  was  much  more  like  a  Harvard  defeat. 
The  veteran  players  in  crimson  were  held  hard  by 
the  men  of  New  Haven,  and  the  contest  resulted  in 
a  tie,  with  all  the  honours  to  the  Blue. 

And  most  of  the  money,  as  well.  Jarvis,  at  any 
rate,  had  wagered  that  Harva'rd  would  win,  and  had 
lost  the  greater  part  of  his  allowance.  He  was  re- 
flecting that  evening  that  the  remainder  of  the  term 
would  have  to  be  passed  under  conditions  of  econ- 
omy that  offered  only  the  now  indifferent  charm  of 
novelty  —  for  write  home  for  money  he  would  not  — 
and  was  trying  to  comfort  himself  with  the  thought 
that  there  was  at  least  one  man  in  the  University 
whom  the  game  had  left  in  a  fix  even  worse  than  his 
own,  when  the  small  individual  he  had  in  mind 
rushed  out  upon  him  from  Foster's  with  a  wild  roar 
of  delight. 


EXIT  A  BOY.  125 

"  Come  on  !  Come  on  !  "  cried  Stannard,  flinging 
his  arms  about  Jarvis'  astonished  shoulders.  "  Come 
on  in  town  and  help  me  celebrate !  " 

"  If  you  don't  mind,"  growled  the  victim  of  this 
attack,  "  I  should  like  to  know  first  what  the  devil 
there  is  to  celebrate." 

"  That's  just  it !  That's  the  splendid  new  part 
of  my  plan.  Anybody  could  celebrate  a  victory. 
Everybody  would.  And  it  would  be  tame  and  old. 
But  I  always  knew  I  was  a  genius  and  it  has  just  oc- 
curred to  me  that  I  should  change  matters  and  cele- 
brate what  amounts  to  a  defeat." 

"  Well,  you  can  —  if  you  can,"  Jarvis,  somewhat 
obscurely,  replied,  "  but  I  have  n't  got  the  price. 
And  I  thought  you  hadn't  either." 

"  That 's  where  my  genius  shows  itself  again." 
"  You    don't   mean  you    hedged  ?  "     The  thought 
disgusted  him. 

"No,"  replied  Stannard  with  a  similar  inflection, 
"  What  do  you  think  I  am?  " 

"  I  long  ago  gave  it  up.  But  then  you  must  have 
gone  down  between  the  halves  and  bet  that  Yale 
would  n't  score." 

"  Wrong  again ;   I  'm   going  to  do  it  without  the 
price." 
"How?" 

"  Oh,  don't  be  so  damned  practical !  We  '11  find 
out  when  we  get  to  town.  I  Ve  got  fifty  cents  in  my 
pocket  and  you  must  have  a  dollar  anyhow." 


126  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

"And    you    propose   to    celebrate    on    a    dolla 
fifty?" 

"  I  told  you  I  was  going  to  celebrate  on  nothing  b\ 
all.  Come  on.  You  '11  see.  The  lovely  thing  about 
Boston  is  that  the  unexpected  is  always  waiting 
just  around  the  corner." 

"  Well,  I  won't  hang  up  the  agent  for  any  more 
theatre  tickets." 

"Who  asked  you,  grouchy?  That's  not  celebrab 
ing.  No,  J  had  made  up  my  mind  what  I  was  going 
to  do  when  we  licked  Yale  this  year  again  —  had  it 
all  planned  out  —  and  do  you  suppose  I  'm  going  to 
let  such  a  little  thing  as  a  Yale  victory  stand  in  my 
way?" 

Jarvis  supposed  not.  He  reflected  that  the  plan, 
springing  from  such  a  source,  offered  the  quality  ot 
surprise.  Stannard  was  known  everywhere  in  Boston 
—  everywhere  he  should  be  known,  because  he  was 
a  Boston  boy,  and  everywhere  he  should  not  have 
been  because  he  was  so  inevitably  Stannard.  So, 
catching  fire  at  last  from  the  fellow's  enthusiasm, 
Jarvis  made  a  wild  dive  for  the  nearest  car. 

It  was  the  last  night  of  his  boyhood.  He  had 
thought  before  that  he  had  one  morning  waked  up 
a  man,  but  he  was  still,  at  the  psychological  moment, 
able  to  cast  the  snake-skin  of  maturity  and  return 
again  for  an  hour  to  the  old  fresh  point  of  view. 
Now,  however,  it  was  for  the  last  time.  He  little 


EXIT  A  BOY.  127 

dreamed  it  and  yet  he  must  somehow  have  felt  it,  for 
he  had  never  been  so  happily  complete  in  it  before. 

They  did  "  everything,"  as  Stannard  ever  afterward 
delightedly  put  it.  They  were  not  in  town  thirty 
minutes  before  they  had  gathered  about  them  a  dozen 
men  from  College,  most  of  them  strangers,  but  all  of 
them  soon  afire  from  the  irresistible  two.  They 
shouted  in  the  hotel  corridors,  made  speeches  on  the 
Common,  caught  an  unfortunate  student  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Institute  of  Technology,  and  made  him  sing 
"  Fair  Harvard  "  from  the  steps  of  one  of  the  build- 
ings of  Boston  University.  But  they  were  always  so 
good-natured  about  it  that  nobody,  not  even  the 
Technology  student,  seemed  very  much  to  mind. 
In  front  of  a  Washington  Street  theatre  they  took  the 
horses  from  a  carriage  and  signs  from  passing  cars. 

Then  Stannard's  genius  shot  suddenly  to  its  apogee. 
They  had  torn  the  pole  of  one  car  from  the  wire 
overhead  and  just  as  the  laughing  crowd  on  the  side- 
walks was  growing  denser,  augmented  by  the  people 
from  the  theatre,  someone  shouted,  — 

"  Here  're  the  cops !  " 

"  Grab  a  hat  and  club !  "  shouted  Stannard,  "  and 
we'  11  run  the  next  car  !  " 

The  words  were  scarcely  out  of  his  mouth  before 
car  and  policemen  arrived  together.  Men  sprang 
upon  the  fender  and  the  platforms.  Then,  as  the 
crowd  opened  and  the  car  dashed  ahead,  they  clutched 


128  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

wildly  at  the  policemen,  who  were  breaking  through, 
and  secured  their  coveted  trophies. 

Before  they  had  gone  another  block,  conductor 
and  motorman  had  both  been  bundled  off.  Jarvis 
leaped  into  the  place  of  the  latter  and  Stannard 
joyously  assumed  the  former's  position.  The  pas- 
sengers, some  half  dozen  in  number,  had  begun  by 
laughing  and  ended  by  threatening  or  fainting  accord- 
ing to  sex. 

As  they  tore  down  the  street,  "  Ladies  and  gentle- 
men," shouted  Stannard  above  the  pandemonium, 
"  Pray  do  not  be  alarmed.  There  is  no  danger. 
We  represent  the  corporation  of  Harvard  University. 
This  company  owes  us  a  small  sum  of  money  for  the 
privilege  of  carrying  students  into  and  out  of  town, 
and  as  we  have  had  a  great  deal  of  trouble  in  collect- 
ing our  little  bill  —  as  in  fact,  they  seemed  disinclined 
to  pay  us  at  all  —  we  were  forced  to  secure  a  judg- 
ment on  one  of  their  cars.  There  is  only  one  thing 
that  will  cause  you  the  slightest  annoyance ;  I  regret 
that  we  cannot  stop  to  put  off  or  take  on  passengers. 
We  must  not  slack  up  until  we  reach  our  journey's  end. 
I  don't  know  just  where  that  will  be,  but  never  mind 
-  my  motorman  is  both  clear-headed  and  skilful." 

His  motorman  was  not  so  sure  of  that.  Jarvis 
knew  that  Stannard  had  enough  fellows  at  his  back 
to  enforce  his  will  on  their  living  freight,  but  he  had 
no  sooner  put  his  hand  to  the  controller  than  he  per- 


EXIT   A   BOY.  129 

ceived  that  a  regiment  could  not  manage  their  speed. 
However,  he  did  not  particularly  care.  It  would, 
after  all,  be  time  enough  to  care  when  they  struck 
something.  He  could  at  least  ring  the  gong  and 
there  was  no  car  for  a  few  blocks  ahead.  So  —  as  he 
seemed  to  have  swung  into  full  pace  and  was  appar- 
ently unable  to  slow  up,  whichever  way  he  turned 
that  annoying  handle,  —  he  jammed  it  back  again  to 
its  farthest  notch  and,  as  he  afterwards  expressed  it, 
"  let  her  go." 

She  went.  They  dashed  on  at  a  terrifying  pace. 
He  would  just  catch  glimpses  of  the  throng  on  the 
sidewalks  trying  to  stop  or  turning  to  stare  at  his 
runaway  charge.  There  was  an  unending  line. 
People  were  dashing  madly  across  the  track  in  front 
of  the  fender.  Now  and  then  a  lone  policeman  would 
stand  directly  ahead  and  wave  his  impotent  arms,  but 
only  to  dodge  nimbly  aside  at  the  critical  instant. 
And  all  the  time  Jarvis  was  gleefully  conscious  of  the 
joyous  Stannard,  somewhere  at  his  back  in  the  car, 
clinging  to  the  straps,  and,  as  he  sang  the  tenor  part 
to  "  King  Charles,"  marking  time  by  ringing  up 
suppositious  fares. 

Suddenly,  directly  ahead,  there  dashed  into  view  a 
dark  line  of  men.  In  an  instant  he  realised  what  it 
meant. 

"  Cops  ahead  !  "  he  yelled  and  hammered  wildly  at 
the  gong.  Then,  "  Get  out  of  the  way  !  "  he  shrieked, 

9 


130  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

bending  far  forward  over  the  front  of  the  car,  but 
aware  that  his  voice  was  drowned  in  the  roar  of  the 
charge.  "  I  can't  stop  the  damned  thing !  " 

The  police  —  they  are  a  canny  lot  —  must  have 
grasped  the  meaning  without  the  words,  for  they 
sprang  aside  and  as  the  car  dashed  through  their 
ranks  they  made  wild  clutches  at  its  bars. 

Several  men  were  bowled  over.  Jarvis  saw  them 
rolling  into  the  gutters.  But  one  made  the  step  and 
before  the  Freshman  could  reflect  on  the  meaning  of 
such  a  thing,  he  had  tossed  this  one  off.  Evidently, 
however,  the  fellow  was  not  much  hurt,  for  no  more 
was  ever  heard  of  him. 

But  now  there  was  a  blaze  of  light  just  a  block  in 
advance.  The  preceding  cars  must  have  been  stopped 
What  was  to  be  done?  There  must  be  a  brake  some- 
where. He  searched  for  it  wildly.  If  something  wa? 
not  done  and  done  at  once  the  end  was  certain. 

Jarvis  quickly  resolved  on  one  thing.  He  would 
stand  there  until  the  crash  came  and  take  the  conse- 
quences, even  if  he  could  not  avert  those  awaiting  the 
other  occupants  of  the  car. 

But  could  he  not  avert  them?  He  swung  one 
lever  after  the  other  and  thus  somehow  —  he  never 
knew  how,  but  somehow  —  they  came  to  a  terrible 
stop  within  an  inch,  as  it  seemed,  of  the  car  immedi- 
ately ahead. 

The  shock  threw  everyone  about  the  floor.     Jarvis 


EXIT  A  BOY.  131 

was  tossed  almost  to  the  back  platform  and,  before 
any  of  them  could  recover,  a  dozen  officers,  sprung 
from  nowhere,  were  sitting  on  everybody's  chests. 

In  the  melee,  however,  some  of  the  more  fortunate 
criminals  managed  to  escape.  But  the  two  ringleaders 
were  marched  off,  safely  enough,  to  a  patrol  wagon 
that  stood  only  too  ready.  It  was  painfully  evident 
that  a  battle  for  liberty  was  out  of  the  question. 

Jarvis  was  more  or  less  ashamed,  but  to  Stannard 
there  had  been  early  vouchsafed  a  cheerful  blindness 
to  such  merry  forms  of  disgrace,  and  before  they  had 
reached  the  station  house  he  had  cemented  a  laugh- 
ing friendship  with  all  of  his  captors  by  declarations 
that  he  and  Jarvis  were  merely  passengers  on  the 
ill-fated  car,  by  highly-coloured  narratives  of  the 
escapade,  and  by  the  willingness  with  which  he  finally 
wore  away  the  tedium  of  the  drive  through  singing 
that  classic  song  that  begins  with  the  definite  state- 
ment that  — 

"  Harvard  was  Harvard." 

"  My  name,"  he  replied,  fifteen  minutes  later  in 
reply  to  the  House  Sergeant's  question,  "  is  William 
Shakespeare,  as  you  will  see  by  the  initials  on  my 
clothes.  Ben's,  however,  is  Ben  Jonson,  though  you 
won't  find  him  so  labelled.  His  laundry  people  got 
down  an  R  in  place  of  a  B.  We  plead  '  not  guilty.' 
What's  the  bail?" 

"  The  magistrate's  asleep  long  ago." 


132  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

"  Then  for  heaven's  sake,  wake  him  up.  We  live 
in  Roxbury,  and  must  get  home  in  time  to  go  to  the 
high  school  by  nine  o'clock." 

The  sergeant  was  a  little  man,  whose  severe  mouth 
was  owing  only  to  an  equally  severe  loss  of  teeth. 

"  You  can  send  out  and  see  if  you  can  get  enough 
bail,"  he  grinned.  "  It  won't  be  very  much  for  you, 
I  calculate.  But  you  'd  better  have  it  before  you 
wake  the  old  man." 

The  inference  was  obvious,  and  was  acted  upon 
with  the  result  that  by  daylight  the  money  had  been 
secured  from  Cambridge,  and  the  precious  pair  were 
again  in  their  own  beds. 

Perhaps  because  the  incident  did  not  look  any  too 
well  for  the  traction  company  or  the  police,  or  else 
—  as  is  less  likely  —  because  Stannard's  lie  had  been 
really  accepted,  the  forfeited  bail  did  not  bring  about 
any  unpleasant  complications  and,  as  the  affair  was 
carefully  kept  out  of  the  papers,  few  people  were  ever 
any  the  wiser  for  it. 

Jarvis  was  not  one  of  these.  His  realisation  of  the 
peril  in  which  he  had  thoughtlessly  placed  a  number 
of  lives,  was,  although  late,  sharp  enough,  and  his 
store  of  knowledge  seemed  considerably  increased  by 
the  narrowness  of  his  own  escape.  This  added  a 
touch  of  seriousness  to  his  work,  and  made  his  life 
during  the  month  following  the  Yale  game  colourless 
perhaps,  but  decidedly  more  to  be  approved. 


EXIT  A   BOY.  133 

So  far  as  his  studies  were  concerned,  the  only  thing 
that  now  particularly  worried  him  was  the  growing 
feeling  that  it  was  perhaps  too  late  to  catch  up.  Yet 
he  worked  hard,  and  at  Christmas  time  signed  off  at 
the  Office  for  a  week  only.  Then  it  seemed  he  had 
scarcely  returned  before  the  terrible  Mid-Year's  were 
upon  him.  He  looked  at  the  "  Crimson's  "  bewilder- 
ing schedule  in  something  very  like  amazement. 
There  would  be  no  difficulty  about  English  and  he 
had  worked  hard  enough,  he  thought,  to  master  suffi- 
cient History  to  get  him  through  that  course.  But 
the  others? 

"  Oh,  it  will  come  out  all  right,"  Hardy  assured 
him  that  morning  at  Mrs.  Blank's,  "  You  Ve  still  got 
lots  of  time  to  bone,  and  there  is  n't  any  time  like  the 
night  before  an  examination." 

"  French  is  all  right,  and  I  'm  not  scared  of  His- 
tory," Stannard  announced  from  across  the  table. 
"  You  're  taking  that,  are  n't  you,  Hardy  ?  I  got  a  book 
of  printed  notes  on  it  at  the  first  of  the  year,  and  if  I 
can  only  find  it  or  get  another  copy  —  it 's  still  around 
my  room  somewhere,  I  guess  —  it  '11  be  a  cinch." 

"  Well,  I  hope  I  can  get  past  it,"  said  Jarvis.  "  But 
i  could  never  remember  dates  and  mathematics,  I 
know  it 's  no  use  trying  to  do  anything." 

Hardy's  comforting  assurances  went  for  little. 
They  knew  him,  for  his  part,  to  be  one  of  those  who 
worked  none  too  hard  until  the  eve  of  an  examina- 


134  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

tion,  and  then  studied  themselves  to  the  very  verge 
of  the  grave,  and  such  men,  they  reflected,  always  got 
through  almost  as  well  as  the  grinds. 

In  this  they  were  right.  Hardy  did  get  through, 
and  with  something  that  was  very  like  distinction. 
The  series  of  seminars  and  coaches  which  he  called 
to  his  aid,  worked  wonders,  and  within  a  few  days 
after  the  conclusion  of  the  time  of  trial,  he  was  off  to 
his  home  with  all  the  old  colour  in  his  cheeks. 

Not  so  the  other  two.  Every  evening  at  dinner 
they  had  made  comparisons  of  the  progress.  There 
was  just  one  difference  in  these  reports :  Stannard 
was  always  sure  that  he  had  "  passed  somehow  "  and 
Jarvis  was  equally  certain  that  he  had  not  passed  at 
all. 

"  They  seem  to  try  so  hard  to  ask  you  everything 
you  'd  expect  them  not  to,"  he  complained.  "  You 
start  out  thinking  you  can  bluff  at  the  questions  you 
don't  know,  and  then  you  end  by  feeling  like  handing 
in  a  blank  book." 

"I  often  do,"  said  Stannard.  "And,  say,  is  this 
right?  —  I  translated  '  toro  '  '  bull '  in  a  line  about 

'  Primus  ut  viridante  toro  consederat  herbae.' 
It  was  Latin  A.     I  wish  I  'd  passed  the  advanced  stuff 
before  I  ever  left  Groton." 

Finally  they  attempted  an  impromptu  seminar  in 
Stannard's  room,  but  that  abode  of  pleasure  contained 
everything  that  made  living  enjoyable  and  study  im- 


EXIT  A  BOY.  135 

possible.  A  move  was  made  to  Jarvis'  quarters,  but 
there  it  was  discovered  that  the  Philadelphia!!  had  no 
notes,  and  that  Stannard's  were  illegible. 

"  You  see,  I  thought  that  was  the  beauty  of  'em," 
their  author  explained.  "  I  fixed  them  so  with  con- 
siderable labour.  Then,  if  I  had  to  show  them  at  a 
consultation,  the  instructor  coulcN&'t  tell  whether  they 
were  good  or  bad.  It  worked,  too,"  he  added,  in 
proud  defence. 

"Well,"  said  Jarvis,  ever  ready  to  accept  his  fate, 
"  it  begins  to  look  as  if  the  game  were  up,  anyhow." 

He  felt  a  lump  in  his  throat,  and  wanted  dreadfully 
to  have  Stannard  get  out  of  the  room. 

"  Oh,  I  'm  not  fixed  yet !  "  cried  that  young  person. 

"  Are  n't  you  ?     I  'd  like  to  know  how  you  intend 

to  manage  it.     It  means  probation  anyhow,  and  such 

hard  work  to  stay  here  that  we  '11  be  just  like  that 

man  Mallard." 

"  Probation 's  not  so  bad.  My  brother  told  me  all 
about  it  when  he  was  in  College.  Rot!  Anyway, 
Mallard  thinks  he  's  all  right.  He  thinks  he  '11  have 
another  chance  at  the  end  of  this  year  and  make  the 
first  eight  of  the  O.  K.,  and  be  initiated  at  the  dinner, 
and  all  that." 

They  laughed  a  little,  nervously,  and  Stannard 
looked  out  of  the  window  and  tried  to  whistle  the 
Institute  March.  Then  he  got  up  with  a  little  sigh 
and  made  a  rush  for  the  hall  door. 


136  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

"  My  adviser  's  such  a  stinker,"  he  muttered  as  he 
bade  good  bye. 

The  agony  was  long,  but  it  had  to  come  to  an  end 
at  last,  and  Jarvis  was  not  the  only  unastounded  one 
at  its  denouement.  To  "  call  at  the  Office  between  the 
hours  of,"  etc.  —  that  was,  of  course,  the  form  of  the 
conclusion.  There  was  a  small  army  of  unfortunates 
to  keep  him  company  and  these  greeted  him  with  for- 
lorn little  smiles  as  he  entered  the  bare  ante-room  in 
front  of  the  wire-screened  counter. 

The  final  interview,  he  had  to  admit,  was  as  pleasant 
as  it  was  possible  to  make  it.  He  had  failed  in  a 
great  many  things  and  he  had  not,  all  through  the 
past  term,  shown  that  consistency  in  study  and  con- 
duct that  would  —  er  —  indicate  —  that,  in  short,  was 
evidence  of  good  faith  in  the  matter  of  his  University 
connection.  There  had  been  occasions  when  his 
seat  was  empty  at  nine  o'clocks  and  other  lectures. 
Oh,  yes,  that  had  been  at  the  start.  Of  late  he  had 
shown  a  better  disposition,  but  he  had  been  a  trifle 
dilatory  about  showing  it.  Did  he  not  think  so  him- 
self ?  Well,  then,  in  consideration  of  that  later  stand, 
it  was  not  intended  to  deal  too  harshly  with  him.  So 
many  did  not,  at  the  start,  fully  appreciate  the 
Faculty's  attitude.  That  being  the  case,  then,  it  had 
been  decided  to  —  to  place  him  upon  probation. 
Every  possible  aid  would  be  offered  him  toward 
rehabilitation,  and,  in  the  mean  time,  if  he  really 


EXIT  A   BOY.  137 

wanted  to  be  re-established,  it  would  be  well  for  him 
to  go  at  once  and  have  a  talk  with  his  adviser. 

Too  proud  to  wheedle  or  protest,  Jarvis  walked 
away,  feeling  pretty  much  as  if  his  College  career 
was  about  at  an  end.  He  did  not  mind  that  so 
much  for  himself  as  for  his  parents,  and  it  was  only 
the  thought  of  them  that  took  him  to  his  adviser's 
for  the  first  time  since  the  single  visit  in  September. 

Mr.  Barker  was  in.  He  was  a  rather  young  man, 
with  a  keen,  clean-shaven  face,  and  spectacles.  He 
had  a  pleasant  room  and  was  smoking  a  cigarette. 

"  I  don't  suppose  you  remember  me,"  said  Jarvis, 
mentioning  his  name,  "but  I  'm  one  of  your  charges, 
I  believe,  and  at  the  Office  they  seem  to  think  I  'd 
better  have  a  talk  with  you.  I  Ve  been  put  on 
probation." 

Mr.  Barker  smiled.  He  did  not,  to  Jarvis'  surprise, 
seem  to  think  this  so  very  awful  a  catastrophe.  No 
doubt  he  had  been  warned  of  it;  certainly  he  had 
had  to  deal  with  numberless  such  cases. 

He  remembered  Jarvis  perfectly,  he  said.  It  was 
hard  luck  that  he  should  have  begun  so  poorly,  but 
the  present  state  of  affairs  meant  only  a  certain  degree 
of  grinding. 

"  But  that 's  just  what  I  Ve  been  doing  for  the  last 
two  months,"  Jarvis  at  last  protested. 

"Rather  blindly,  I'm  afraid,"  said  Mr.  Barker, 
smiling. 


138  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

"  You  judge  by  the  results?  " 

"  Not  entirely." 

It  was  more  than  Jarvis  could  bear. 

"  Then  you  're  just  like  the  others  !  "  he  broke  out. 
"  They  all  seem  to  have  known  all  along  what  was 
coming  and  they  would  n't  warn  me." 

Mr.  Barker  drew  a  weary  hand  across  his  pale  face. 

"  I  think  there  was  a  former  interview  at  the 
Office?"  he  suggested. 

"  But,"  said  Jarvis,  "  they  gave  scarcely  any  hint  of 
this."  He  really  thought  so  as  he  spoke.  "  Was  it 
fair,  do  you  think?"  he  went  on,  "At  any  other 
college  I  Ve  ever  heard  of  they  'd  have  openly 
cautioned  a  man." 

The  adviser  grew  grave  enough. 

"  Very  possibly,"  he  assented.  "  I  don't  know 
much  about  other  colleges,  but  I  do  know  a  little 
about  this  one,  and  I  know  that  is  not  our  way.  Here 
you  are  given  the  chance  for  the  best  things  in  life. 
If  you  're  the  sort  that  does  n't  want  to  take  that 
chance,  you  're  the  sort  the  College  does  n't  want, 
that 's  all.  Don't  you  see  for  yourself  that  it  is  better 
so?  Had  you  been  told,  you  might  have,  managed  to 
pass,  but  you  would  not  have  gained  what  you  gain  to- 
day. You  have  been  treated  as  a  man.  You  knew 
the  rewards  and  penalties,  and  you  are  not  a  child. 
What  will  be  the  result?  You  will  understand,  as  you 
could  never  otherwise  have  understood,  what  you  came 


EXIT   A   BOY.  139 

here  for,  and  you  will  go  to  work  with  renewed  energy 
and  with  definite,  systemized  endeavour.  I  shall  help 
you  all  I  can.  We  will  all  do  that.  But  we  want  most 
of  all  to  have  you  help  yourself." 

He  had  gained  his  point  before  he  was  half  through. 
To  the  plans  that  were  then  unfolded  —  they  meant,  as 
he  had  said,  simply  hard  work  and  no  cutting,  — Jarvis 
listened  with  growing  enthusiasm,  and  when  at  last 
he  rose  to  bid  good  bye,  he  shook  hands  a  trifle 
unsteadily. 

"  It  will  turn  out  all  right,  I  am  sure,"  said  the 
adviser. 

"  I  don't  care  how  it  turns  out,"  said  Jarvis.  "  I  '11 
do  my  best.  The  way  of  this  place  is  the  right  way, 
and  I  would  n't  have  any  other  at  any  other  place,  if 
I  had  to  leave  College  to-morrow." 


CHAPTER  XI. 

THE  WAY   OF   A   MAID. 

JARVIS,  of  course,  did  not  have  to  leave  College. 
On  the  contrary,  he  did  very  well  indeed.  In  student 
parlance,  there  is  "  nothing  doing"  through  February 
and  March.  The  weather  is  atrocious ;  the  absence, 
in  Cambridge,  of  respectable  sidewalks  becomes 
dangerously  evident,  and  those  Undergraduates  who 
are  not  ill  or  rowing,  have  little  left  but  their 
studies.  Thus  it  was  that,  during  most  of  this  period, 
the  bell  of  Harvard  Hall  became  Jarvis'  time-piece 
and  lectures  his  recreation.  Two  or  three  of  his 
fortnightly  themes  were  published  in  the  "  Advocate," 
and  he  was  one  day  overjoyed  to  receive  a  politely 
printed  slip  requesting  the  privilege  of  the  use  of 
some  of  his  verse  for  that  forbidden  ground  to 
Freshmen,  the  "  Monthly." 

Stannard  had  remained  in  College  by  an  astounding 
series  of  lucky  strokes  and  was  already  on  the  staff  of 
the  "  Lampoon,"  a  place  earned  for  him  by  his  clever 
pencil.  Hardy  and  the  Major  were  not  perceptibly 
changed,  but  Mallard  had  astonished  all  his  friends 
by  losing  himself  in  the  twenty-five  eight-oared  boats 


THE   WAY   OF   A   MAID.  141 

and  numberless  four  and  "pair  oareds "  that  were 
beginning  to  practise  tiresome  starts  and  to  make 
endless  trips  from  the  abattoir  to  the  basin. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  term,  however,  study  did 
not  occupy  all  of  Jarvis'  time.  With  his  conditions 
at  last  worked  off  and  his  courses  all  well  in  hand,  he 
even  regained  his  lost  athletic  prestige  by  winning, 
again  under  the  giant  Innez,  a  place  on  his  Class  base- 
ball nine,  where,  in  a  mild  way,  he  distinguished 
himself  not  a  little. 

Then  came  the  languorous  spring,  —  never  quite  so 
splendid  a  thing  anywhere  else,  —  when  the  Yard  is 
fresh  with  the  bright  green  of  the  turf  and  the  streets 
are  sweet  with  the  tender  new  leaves  and  the  scent 
of  distant  blossoms ;  the  spring  when  strong  youths' 
voices  are  singing  in  unison  under  the  elms  anything 
from  grand  old  Latin  hymns  to  "  Lizette  "  and  "  Mrs. 
Craigin's  Daughter ;  "  the  time  of  club  dinners  and 
"Pop"  concerts  in  town  and  Strawberry  Nights, — 
and  Finals.  All  springs  are  glorious  there  and  each 
more  glorious  than  the  last.  One  is  even  gently 
interested  in  the  Class  races  on  the  Charles  —  "the 
back  yard  of  your  best  girl's  home,"  as  Stannard 
always  called  it. 

Jarvis  enjoyed  it  to  the  full,  with  a  strong,  healthy 
heart  and  a  clear  right-seeing  head.  He  had  never  been 
in  better  trim  in  all  his  life,  and  thus,  when  the  glo- 
ries of  Class  Day,  with  its  tree  ceremonies  and 


142  JARVIS    OF    HARVARD. 

"  spreads,"—  this  time  driven  indoors  by  a  not  un- 
friendly rain,  —  had  passed  before  his  admiring  eyes 
and  he  had  seen  the  Commencement  exercises  in 
Sanders  he  went  home  for  his  vacation,  even  from 
the  awful  'Varsity  boat-race,  with  something  about 
as  close  to  a  realisation  of  Harvard  as  a  man  can 
come  to  before  he  leaves  the  place  forever. 

"  Not  that  you  can  put  Harvard  in  words,"  he 
assured  his  none  too  impressionable  mother.  "  You 
can't.  But  if  the  absurd  people  who  are  always  say- 
ing we  're  blase  and  bored  and  cynical  could  see  us 
in  May  and  June,  there  would  be  an  end  of  such  stuff. 
Why,  we  even  put  up  with  the  only  people  who  try 
verbally  to  express  the  place  —  Memorial  Day  orators, 
or  else  baccalaureate  preachers  who  haven't  ever 
been,  you  know,  and  could  n't  anyway." 

During  the  summer  he  took  the  best  of  care  of 
himself.  After  his  brief  baseball  experience,  there 
had  been  made  to  him  a  clear  intimation  that  his 
football  shortcomings  would  be  overlooked  and  that  a 
man  who  had  proved  so  promising  would  have  an 
opportunity  early  in  the  fall  of  trying  for  the  'Varsity 
eleven.  Accordingly,  he  spent  most  of  his  vacation 
in  the  White  Mountains,  without  a  sight  of  his  still 
dreaded  Nemesis,  and  when,  at  the  very  end,  he 
learned  th.at  his  cousin  Peggy  had  gone  to  finish  a 
rather  late  season  at  the  country  house  of  an  uncle 
in  southern  Pennsylvania,  he  readily  accepted  an 


THE   WAY   OF   A   MAID.  143 

invitation  to  put  in  a  few  days  there  on  his  own 
account. 

Thus  it  happened  that  one  glorious  crimson  after- 
noon found  him  driving  with  that  young  lady  among 
the  hills  of  Lancaster  county.  Far  out  below  them 
from  the  bald  summit  of  Katalech  stretched  a  sea  of 
green  and  gold,  of  orange  and  yellow,  of  red  leaves 
and  sere,  rolling  off  upon  all  sides  in  shimmering 
waves  of  emerald  and  ruby  to  the  far  away  purple 
line  of  the  Tuscaroras.  Here  and  there  the  ocean  of 
tossing  leaves  was  broken  by  a  small,  square  island 
of  bare,  dun-coloured  earth,  from  which  rose  a  few 
stacks  of  ungarnered  corn,  and  again  there  were  the 
white  walls  of  a  tobacco-shed  dancing  in  the  sunlight, 
or  a  red-brick  farmhouse,  with  little  windows  casting 
back  the  last  rays  of  the  sun  that  was  setting,  in  a 
glory  of  red  and  gold,  over  Winter  Hill.  Overhead 
long,  slow  trains  of  field-crows  were  winging  their 
melancholy  flight  homeward.  Among  the  trees 
directly  below  them  there  shone  the  naked  trunk  of 
a  birch,  like  some  arrested  dryad,  and  above  the 
myriad  needles  of  a  lone  pine  were  whispering  to 
each  other  as  do  the  lips  of  one  stricken  with  palsy. 

That  was  what  Jarvis  tried  to  tell  Peggy  as  they 
drew  up  the  old  horse  and  looked  out  upon  the  scene. 

Peggy  laughed. 

"  It  is  pretty,"  she  said. 

The  past  few  days,  Jarvis  was  forced  to  own,  had 


144  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

been  rather  dull.  When,  therefore,  they  started  out 
on  this  particular  afternoon  for  a  drive  to  Katalech, 
he  welcomed  the  chance  for  something  new  and  he 
was  not  disappointed.  They  had  had  a  hard  time  get- . 
ting  here ;  but  now,  —  after  going  off  on  several  false 
scents  and  rounding  up  in  barnyards,  to  the  con- 
sternation of  a  hundred  hens,  or  before  farmhouse 
doors,  to  the  wide-eyed  terror  of  the  natives,  —  here 
they  were  at  last,  and  Peggy  at  once  wanted  to  start 
back  again. 

"  Let 's  go  back  by  way  of  Lancaster,"  she  sug- 
gested. "  We  can  stop  at  Penn's  for  supper,  and  get 
home  by  nine  o'clock.  It's  so  much  nicer  a  road." 

"  Is  it?"  said  Jarvis,  loath  to  hurry  on.  "  With  all 
my  heart  then,  only  where  is  the  road?  " 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know  exactly,  but  I  'm  sure  it's  much 
nicer.  It  must  be  nicer  than  going  the  way  we  came. 
We  can  ask  the  way,  you  know." 

He  did  know.  He  had  already  asked  the  way  fifty 
times,  and  he  was  tired  of  asking,  especially  as  he  did 
not  speak  Pennsylvania  Dutch.  Peggy's  suggestions, 
however,  were  generally  final. 

Of  course  they  lost  the  way.  He  knew  they  would 
do  that.  They  had  not  gone  three  miles  before  the 
fact  became  perfectly  evident.  What  was  worse, 
those  three  miles  had  taken  them  into  the  Martic 
Hills,  where  there  is  not  a  house  in  every  five  miles. 

At  the  first,  some  very  disreputable-looking  char- 


THE   WAY   OF  A   MAID.  145 

coal-burners  directed  them  to  the  right.     Six  miles 
down  the  right  they  met  a  woodcutter. 

"  I  '11  ask  him,"  ventured  Jarvis. 

"  Oh,  what 's  the  use  of  asking  so  often  ? "  said 
Peggy ;  "  They  just  laugh  at  you." 

But  Dick  was  not  to  be  moved  this  time,  and  ad- 
dressed the  pedestrian. 

The  woodcutter  sent  them  back  to  the  charcoal- 
burners.  Thence  they  were  directed  straight  ahead. 
They  had  been  misunderstood  before. 

The  way  lay  up  and  down  steep  hills  that,  at  the 
distance  of  a  hundred  yards,  looked  simply  perpen- 
dicular. The  forest,  dense  with  underbrush,  grew 
straight  up  to  the  rugged  road,  and  the  tall  silent 
trees  stretched  their  bare,  black  arms  directly  over- 
head. There  was  a  mysterious,  solemn  air  about  the 
place  that  made  the  girl  draw  well  back  in  the  seat, 
and  the  horse  was  tired,  and  could  go  but  slowly. 

At  this  rate  it  was  ten  o'clock  by  the  time  they 
got  out  of  the  hills,  and  Jarvis  recalled  to  Peggy,  who 
had  become  unaccountably  silent,  that  the  natives 
went  to  bed  at  nine. 

"  I  'd  like  to  know  whose  fault  that  is,"  was  her  only 
comment. 

Her  tone  indicated  that  the  fault  was  his. 

The  next  hour  he  spent  in  stopping  at  every  cross- 
roads, "  shinning  "  sign-posts,  and,  by  the  short  lived 
light  of  many  matches,  trying  to  read  the  directions 

10 


146  JARVJS   OF   HARVARD. 

given  there.  It  was  quite  archaeological ;  he  cut  his 
shoes  on  the  stones  of  the  wayside  gullies ;  twice  he 
fell  over  the  larger  ones.  And  then  the  effort  was 
useless.  A  sign  read  "  Two  miles  to  Rotherville." 
He  said  that  was  not  the  way  they  wanted  to  go. 
Peggy  said  it  was.  He  gave  in,  and  three  miles 
further  on  got  out  of  the  cart  and  read  "  Two  miles 
to  Rotherville." 

Even  then  they  almost  missed  the  place,  which 
consisted  of  a  half  dozen  houses,  strung  along  the 
gloomy  road. 

He  got  out  again,  and  attacked  a  side  door,  while 
they  both  hallooed  with  all  the  strength  of  their 
united  voices.  At  last,  a  window  opened,  and  they 
were  directed  in  a  strong  German  accent  to  go  back 
the  way  they  had  come. 

The  next  time  they  hesitated  over  a  sign-post,  he 
asked  Peggy  which  way  they  should  go. 

But  Peggy  was  beyond  the  reach  of  sarcasm. 

"  Oh,  go  where  you  please,"  she  said.  "  I  '11  not 
advise  you  again.  You  know  it  all,  of  course." 

He  used  his  last  match  to  look  at  his  watch. 

"What  time  is  it?"  she  asked,  manifesting  but  a 
languid  interest. 

"  Half-past  eleven,"  he  replied. 

She  awoke  at  once. 

"  Mamma  '11  think  this  a  nice  thing  !  I  hope  you  're 
glad  now  you  brought  me  out  and  lost  me." 


THE   WAY   OF  A  MAID.  147 

Now,  Jarvis'  love  for  Mrs.  Bartol  had  not  developed 
with  acquaintance,  so  he  pointed  out  that  it  was 
Peggy  herself,  and  not  he  who  had  proposed  this  way 
home. 

"  I  did  n't  either,"  she  said.  "  I  wanted  to  go  back 
by  way  of  Lancaster ;  not  by  all  the  back  lanes  in  the 
county." 

As  she  spoke,  they  came  to  the  top  of  a  hill.  The 
young  crescent  of  the  moon  had  set  long  ago  and  the 
stars  were  the  only  light  in  the  dark  blue  sky  above,  or 
on  the  silent  fields  and  creeping  fences  at  either  side. 
But  straight  ahead  there  now  shone  an  unmistakable 
glow  —  the  lights  of  Lancaster. 

As  they  entered  a  side  street,  — 

"  Do  you  want  to  go  to  Penn's?  "  asked  Jarvis. 

The  next  morning  he  encountered  Peggy  outside 
the  smoking-room.  In  spite  of  her  threats,  she  had 
made  it  all  right  with  mamma.  She  really  flirted 
outrageously  with  her  mother. 

"  Why  were  you  so  sulky  last  night?"  he  asked. 

"  I  was  n't  a  bit  sulky,"  she  said.  "  I  was  feeling 
perfectly  jolly." 

"  But  you  did  n't  talk." 

"  Yes,  I  did.     Well,  it  was  too  cold  to  talk." 

"  I  thought  it  quite  warm,"  he  replied.  "  But  if 
you  were  cold,  you  should  n't  have  abused  me.  It 
was  n't  any  fault  of  mine." 

"  Yes,  it  was,"  said  Peggy,  and  ran  upstairs. 


148  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

He  stood  for  a  bit  looking  after  her,  and  rolling  a 
cigarette.  Then  he  turned  back  into  the  smoking- 
room,  and  took  up  the  morning  paper.  But  he  could 
not  read ;  the  girl  was  still  too  fascinating  a  mystery 
to  him. 

What  did  she  mean?  Was  this  simply  the  real  in- 
discretion of  a  merry,  unsophisticated  girl?  Or  was 
she  an  ordinary  flirt,  an  insincere  coquette?  There 
were  few  things  he  loathed  more.  He  had  known 
one  woman  of  some  social  standing  that  should  have 
placed  her  above  reproach,  yet  whom  he  had  found 
almost  beneath  it.  That  woman  had  poisoned  his 
opinions  of  the  rest,  but  he  could  feel,  even  for  her 
class,  something  that  was  far  nearer  akin  to  respect 
than  for  those  of  this  other.  A  man  like  Mallard, 
for  instance,  could  enjoy  a  flirtation  with  the  best  or 
the  worst  of  them,  whatever  the  best  or  the  worst 
might  be;  but  Jarvis  was  no  longer  one  of  those 
happy,  big  boys,  joyously  taking  life  as  they  find  it. 
He  had  lost  his  boyhood,  and  life  was  bitterly,  terribly, 
almost  fatally  real  to  him.  Everything  was  extreme, 
and  he  could  not  bear  those  who  tried  to  take  a 
tedious  middle  course.  He  must  have  one  thing  or 
the  other. 

Yet  of  his  two  premises  one  must  be  true,  for  of 
his  cousin's  absolute  purity  he  never  doubted.  In- 
deed, his  mind  never  took  even  this  analytical  turn 
while  Peggy  was  with  him.  While  they  were  in  the 


THE  WAY  OF  A  MAID.  149 

air,  her  scintillations  no  more  permitted  of  analysis 
than  does  the  tail  of  a  rocket.  He  did  not  take  them 
as  they  were,  perhaps,  but  he  involuntarily  admired 
them  and  therefore  concluded  that  they  were  super- 
latively good.  It  was  only  when  they  ceased  to  cut 
the  darkness  of  his  horizon  that  he  attempted  to 
doubt  the  verity  of  his  surmises  concerning  them,  and 
then  he  had  only  the  burnt  stick  by  which  to  judge. 

The  incident  of  the  drive  proved  typical  of  the  next 
two  days  of  the  week.  He  walked  and  drove  with 
Peggy.  He  played  golf  and  tennis  with  her.  He 
even  tried  to  appear  interested  in  her  uncle's  unusually 
dull  dissertations  upon  politics ;  tried  still  harder  to 
be  civil  to  her  mother.  Mrs.  Bartol  fluttered  about 
through  the  routine  incidents  of  her  daily  life,  endeav- 
ouring to  bring  within  the  short  circle  of  her  sight 
and  hearing  as  many  objects  as  she  embraced  in  the 
broad  circumference  of  her  smile.  She  had  an  idea 
that  she  ought  to  talk  literature  to  a  College  man,  as 
she  called  Jarvis,  and,  as  her  knowledge  on  this  sub- 
ject was,  among  her  friends,  notoriously  small,  and 
her  confidence  inversely  large,  the  task  of  civility 
was  not  always  quite  endurable,  even  for  a  guest. 
She  was  one  of  those  persons  who  base  their  claims 
to  be  considered  unusual  upon  a  detailed  knowledge 
of  Dickens  at  his  worst,  and  a  marginal  commentary 
of  "  How  true  !  " 

Jarvis  was   at  a  loss  to  account  from   hearsay  or 


I5O  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

observation  for  any  hereditary  element  in  the  character 
of  the  daughter.  Where  did  she  get  herself?  What 
a  pity  the  father  was  not  alive !  She  had,  indeed, 
neither  a  knowledge  of,  nor  a  love  for,  good  books, 
but,  then,  she  did  not  pretend  to  any,  and  she  differed 
from  her  mother  physically  and  intellectually  in  every 
way  possible.  On  the  other  hand,  her  father,  accord- 
ing to  all  that  Jarvis  could  elicit  during  the  lucid 
intervals  of  the  uncle,  had  been  quite  worthy  of  his 
spouse.  So  it  was  some  freak  of  atavism,  probably. 
The  visitor  began  vaguely  to  wonder  whether,  what- 
ever this  girl  might  be,  she  was  not  too  profound  for 
him.  He  was  still  too  conceited  not  to  resent  any- 
thing that  he  found  too  deep.  Besides,  any  idea  of 
profundity  appeared  so  incompatible  with  this  cheery, 
light-hearted  girl,  whose  every  word  seemed  to  come 
simply  because  it  happened  to  be  the  first  that 
occurred  to  her.  Yet  he  could  in  no  other  way 
account  for  her.  For  the  time  at  least  he  would  give 
it  up. 

Meanwhile,  he  did  not  waver  in  the  determination 
for  a  change  of  amusement  when  he  found  the 
milder  ones,  despite  the  distinct  aid  of  Peggy's 
presence,  something  of  a  bore.  He  would  find  them 
sufficient  in  due  time  and  he  was  resolved  to  have  his 
try  at  regeneration. 

Things  were  not,  however,  to  remain  stupid  for 
long.  As  he  had  made  up  his  mind,  for  obvious 


THE  WAY  OF  A  MAID.  151 

reasons,  not  to  stop  over  in  Philadelphia,  he  had  fixed 
on  Sunday  for  his  departure  for  Cambridge.  It  was 
late  Friday  afternoon  that  Peggy  entered  the  library 
with  the  announcement  that  she  had  just  got  word 
from  a  friend  of  the  previous  summer  who  was  to 
pass  close  by  their  place  that  evening  and  would  stop 
off  with  her  for  a  day. 


CHAPTER  XII. 
A  CHANCE   ENCOUNTER. 

JARVIS  came  down  to  dinner  somewhat  early  that 
evening.  Peggy  was  just  going  out  through  the  hall 
on  her  way  to  the  cart  that  was  waiting  at  the  door. 
As  he  paused  on  the  steps  and  looked  down  at  her, 
she  seemed  somehow  more  than  ever  a  thing  of 
nature,  a  part  of  the  great  life  out  of  doors. 

"  Sorry  I  have  n't  room  for  you  here,"  she  said. 

"Why,  where  are  you  going?"  asked  her  cousin, 
for  the  moment  forgetful  of  the  friend  who  was  to 
arrive  that  day. 

"  To  meet  my  guest,  of  course.  Oh,  I  '11  be  back 
in  good  time  for  dinner  on  this  occasion.  You 
need  n't  be  jealous." 

He  often  afterward  wondered  what  it  was  that  at 
this  moment  made  him  curious  in  regard  to  a  mat- 
ter which  had,  in  the  first  instance,  so  utterly  failed 
to  affect  him. 

"  You  have  n't  told  me  your  friend's  name  yet,"  he 
said. 

"  You  have  n't  asked  before.  This  is  the  first  time 
you  Ve  shown  even  a  passing  regard  in  the  affair." 


A  CHANCE  ENCOUNTER.  153 

"Well,  who  is  it?" 

"  Miss  Mary  Braddock." 

He  could  not  help  but  start  Then  he  fancied 
some  trick  of  his  imagination. 

"  Who?"  he  repeated. 

"  Mary  Braddock." 

As  if  powerless  to  take  it  in,  he  stood  looking 
blankly  at  her. 

Peggy,  however,  put  her  own  construction  upon 
his  action. 

"  Why,  do  you  know  her?  " 

"No  —  that  is,  yes,  I  do,"  he  stammered. 

In  his  absolute  stupor  he  yet  happily  realised,  as 
if  by  actual  inspiration,  that  his  memory  of  past 
events  must  be  guided  by  Mary's  own. 

"What  does  that  mean?  "-asked  the  untroubled 
Peggy,  who,  in  perfect  ignorance  of  the  torture  she 
was  inflicting,  seemed  bound  to  pursue  the  original 
course  of  her  inquiry. 

By  a  superhuman  effort  Jarvis  managed  to  pull 
himself  somewhat  together. 

"  It  means  yes  and  no.  It  may  be  my  Mary  Brad- 
dock,  or  it  may  not."  Perhaps,  after  all,  it  was  not. 

"  Oh,  there  can  be  only  one.  I  met  mine  —  but 
never  mind.  Tell  me  first  who  is  yours." 

Jarvis  was  still  able  to  produce  a  smile. 

"  Never  you  mind,"  he  replied.  "  If  you  won't  tell 
me  first,  you  must  wait  till  you  come  back.  It  will 


154  JARV1S   OF   HARVARD. 

do  very  well  then  and  you  will  not  be  on  time  for 
either  train  or  dinner,  if  you  don't  start  at  once." 

He  watched  anxiously  to  see  the  effect  of  his 
words.  He  felt  that  he  must  get  away  and  be  alone 
for  a  while  if  he  were  to  control  himself  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  woman  who  had  entrapped  him.  Luck- 
ily, Peggy  took  him  at  his  word,  and  with  a  saucy 
courtesy  turned  away. 

When  the  door  had  closed  behind  her,  he  stood 
still  for  a  moment  and  then,  turning  back  up  the 
stairs,  sought  the  comparative  seclusion  of  his  own 
room. 

What  did  it  mean?  What  was  he  to  do?  He 
could  not,  of  course,  help  hoping  that  there  was  some 
mistake  about  the  name,  but  at  the  bottom  of  his 
heart  he  knew  well  enough  that  there  had  been  no 
mistake.  It  was  indeed  she.  In  a  curious  occult 
way  he  had  come  to  regard  his  cousin  as  the  inno- 
cent pythia  to  some  terrible,  outspoken  oracle  of 
fate.  She  had  told  him  he  would  succeed  at  his  foot- 
ball and  he  had  not  the  slightest  doubt  of  his  success. 
Even  had  he  been  of  a  weaker  physique,  he  would 
not  have  doubted.  And  now  she  was  right  again. 
She  must  be  right.  There  could  be  but  one  Mary 
Braddock. 

How  then  had  she  got  here?  Had  she  learned  of 
his  presence  and  was  she  at  last  beginning  to  dog  his 
steps?  Was  she  come,  —  it  did  not,  at  that  crisis, 


A  CHANCE   ENCOUNTER.  155 

seem  absurd  to  think  so,  —  to  denounce  him  as  un- 
worthy of  the  company  in  which  she  found  him? 
His  morbid  imagination  reviewed  the  final  chapters 
of  every  sensational  novel  he  had  ever  read.  He 
pictured  to  himself  the  villain  Jarvis  in  a  hundred 
attitudes  of  exposed  abasement,  until  the  inordinate 
fears  of  a  melodramatic  denouement  took  such  a  hold 
upon  him  that  he  was  tempted  to  flee  the  house. 

He  had  thrown  himself  on  the  fantastic  coverlet  of 
his  bed  and  thrust  his  head  among  the  punctilious 
pillow-slips  with  a  force  that  made  the  little  brass 
framework  tremble  from  end  to  end,  and  the  springs 
>eap  beneath  him  in  but  slowly  lessening  reaction. 
In  a  short  time,  however,  the  habit  of  conformance 
with  propriety  began  to  assert  itself,  and  the  miser- 
able dread  that  his  host  should  find  him  late  for 
dinner  —  together  with  the  vanity  that  prompted 
him  to  conceal  all  signs  of  distress  —  soon  brought 
him  to  his  feet.  He  took  a  drink  of  brandy  from 
the  flask  in  his  suit-case,  changed  his  crumpled  linen 
and  again  started  downstairs. 

Control  himself  as  he  might  in  other  particulars,  he 
descended  slowly  and  with  a  tread  rather  faltering. 

As  he  reached  the  step  from  which,  twenty  min- 
utes before,  he  had  talked  to  Peggy,  another  woman 
crossed  the  hall  and  paused  exactly  where  his  cousin 
had  stood  when  he  last  spoke  to  her.  She  had 
brushed  by  the  servant  and  come  in  ahead  of  her 


156  JARVIS  OF   HARVARD. 

young  hostess,  walking  over  the  difficult  polished 
floor  with  a  graceful,  swaying,  almost  silent  tread, 
that  Jarvis  mentally  likened  to  that  of  a  splendid, 
stealthy  tigress.  It  was  Mary  Braddock. 

She  was  indeed  so  graceful  that  you  would  have 
overlooked  her  unusual  height;  so  perfectly,  as  one 
would  say,  in  hand,  that  you  would  not  have  called 
the  great  sweeping  curves  of  her  figure  in  any  wise 
elaborate.  The  broad  white  forehead,  the  wealth  of 
black  hair,  the  arched  eyebrows  and  the  curling 
lashes  that  seemed  to  weigh  heavily  upon  the  slow 
lids,  —  all  unable  to  hide  the  great  dark  eyes  where 
lurked  yet  revealed  itself  so  much  of  knowledge  — 
these,  with  the  delicate,  firm  outlines  of  the  nose  and 
chin,  the  moist  red  mouth  that  was  ever  waiting  as  it 
afraid  to  give  utterance  to  the  crimson  thoughts 
behind  it  —  how  well  Jarvis  knew  them  all  —  and 
how  fatally! 

Again,  for  an  instant,  he  felt  like  running  away, 
but  Peggy's  laugh,  as  she  tripped  over  beside  her 
companion,  reassured  his  failing  courage  and  piqued 
his  pride.  He  came  down  the  remaining  steps 
quickly  and,  to  all  appearances,  really  happy  and 
at  ease. 

"  Here  's  Dick  now,"  said  Peggy  in  tones  that  spoke 
of  former  and  recent  mention  of  the  name. 

The  light  fell  full  on  his  broad  but  graceful  figure 
as  Mary  turned  slowly  toward  him.  One  hand,  which 


A   CHANCE   ENCOUNTER.  157 

a  half-inch  of  cuff  made  to  appear  quite  small,  rested 
lightly  on  the  bannister.  His  head  was  thrown  back 
on  a  neck  the  thickness  of  which  a  high  collar 
sufficiently  concealed.  Evening  dress  became  him 
and,  as  he  was  too  intent  upon  appearing  simply  un- 
concerned to  give  one  thought  to  his  looks  beyond 
the  point  where  they  ceased  to  portray  his  thoughts, 
he  was  really  altogether  handsome. 

The  new  arrival  was  quick  to  solve  every  difficulty. 
With  perfect  tact  she  came  forward  and  greeted  him 
as  of  old. 

"Yes,  here  he  is  and  not  very  much  changed  in  a 
year,  either.  I  'm  awfully  glad  to  see  you  again, 
Dick." 

Jarvis  noticed  that  she  seemed  even  more  radiantly 
beautiful  than  when  he  had  last  seen  her,  and  yet  he 
could  not  look  straight  in  the  eyes  that  sought  his 
own  with  so  perfect  a  good-fellowship. 

"  You  're  not  half  so  glad  as  I  am,"  he  said. 

"  Miss  Braddock  's  been  telling  me  all  about  you," 
his  cousin  interpolated.  "  I  did  n't  know  I  was  bring- 
ing two  such  good  friends  together." 

"  Nor  I,"  assented  Jarvis,  "  Where  on  earth  do  you 
come  from,  Mary?  " 

"  Not  from  the  next  world,  at  any  rate.  Merely 
Pittsburgh." 

She  spoke  slowly,  almost  —  were  it  not  for  the 
words  themselves  —  languorously.  Her  voice  was 


158  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

deep  and  low  and  there  was  even  a  trace  of  foreign 
accent,  the  relic  of  her  long  schooling  in  France. 

Jarvis  hastened  to  answer. 

"  Pittsburgh?  "  he  repeated.  "  Surely  that's  near 
enough  to  the  other  side  of  the  Styx." 

"  Oh,  it 's  some  distance  from  these  Elysian  fields." 

"  Exactly,"  said  Jarvis,  regaining  again  the  maturer 
pose  that  he  had  a  year  ago  always  unconsciously 
taken  in  her  presence.  "  How  well  you  say  what  I 
can  only  try  to  —  and  miss." 

The  dinner  went  off  well  enough.  Mary  was  cer- 
tainly at  her  ease ;  the  unsuspecting  Peggy  as  light- 
hearted  as  ever.  The  old  gentleman,  rotund  and 
purple,  talked  politics  from  under  his  grizzled  mus- 
tache and  Mrs.  Bartol  smiled  forth  platitudes  and 
quotations  from  Dickens.  Even  Jarvis  found  his 
sensational  fears  vanishing  and  his  manner  becoming 
quite  as  commonplace  as  that  of  his  table-companions. 
When  the  women  had  left  the  room  he  even  managed 
not  to  stay  long  behind  them,  but  went  out  while  the 
uncle  drowsed  over  a  cigar,  and  returned  to  the 
library  where  he  expected  to  find  the  others. 

There  was  nobody  in  the  room  but  Mary. 

"  For  a  moment,  at  least,"  she  explained  with  a 
little  pout,  "  they  Ve  run  away  and  left  me  all  alone." 

"  Well,  never  mind.  You  need  n't  worry.  I  '11 
hardly  suppose  they  '11  allow  you  very  long  at  my 
mercy,"  he  replied,  uncomfortably. 


A   CHANCE  ENCOUNTER.  159 

"  On  the  contrary.  I  am  worrying  for  fear  they 
will  return  sooner  than  I  want  them." 

"  No,  you  're  not  worrying.  You  're  merely  flat- 
tering." 

"  It 's  easier.  But  seriously,  I  do  want  a  chat  with 
you.  Is  it  too  cold  to  go  outside  somewhere  where 
we  shan't  be  interrupted  ?  " 

Jarvis'  nervousness  began  to  reappear  in  full  force. 
There  was,  however,  scarcely  a  choice  of  answers. 

"  Cold?  Not  at  all,"  he  replied  as  best  he  might. 
"  It 's  positively  balmy,  but  you  'd  better  run  up- 
stairs and  get  a  wrap  of  some  kind.  Then  I  '11  show 

you  the  way." 

"  '  When  I  send  for  thee, 
Then  come  thou.'" 

laughed  Mary.  "You  remind  me  of  my  nursery 
days.  There 's  no  need  of  leaving  you.  There 's  a 
cloak  out  here  in  the  hall  that  will  do  well  enough. 
I  noticed  it  as  I  came  in." 

Jarvis  had  wanted  a  moment  in  which  to  collect  his 
courage  for  the  storm  that,  ridiculous  and  melo- 
dramatic as  he  knew  such  a  convulsion  of  the  ele- 
ments would  be,  he  could  none  the  less  help  fearing. 
But  as  he  was  to  have  no  respite,  he  submitted  with 
the  best  grace  possible. 

As  they  passed  through  the  hallway,  Mary  picked 
up  the  wrap  of  which  she  had  spoken.  It  was  one  of 
those  useless,  beautiful  pieces  of  gauze  which  women 


I6O  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

pretend  to  believe  protects  them  from  any  inclemency 
on  the  part  of  the  weather.  And  it  belonged  to 
Peggy.  Jarvis  remembered  wrapping  it  about  her 
the  night  of  the  concert  in  Cambridge. 

"That  thing's  of  no  use,"  he  said,  with  a  sudden 
harshness  in  his  voice. 

"  Oh,  it  will  do  perfectly  well,"  replied  his  com- 
panion easily.  "  It 's  quite  balmy  outside  anyhow, 
you  know." 

"  But  it  does  n't  belong  to  you,"  he  objected,  and 
then,  fearing  for  himself  the  result  of  such  an  indis- 
cretion, he  hastened  to  add,  "Does  it?" 

"  Really,  you  're  very  rude  this  evening.  Are  n't 
you  well?  Or  do  they  teach  such  things  at  Harvard? 
I  hardly  think  we  are  likely  to  elope  in  these  clothes 
or  at  this  stage  of  our  acquaintance." 

"  I  only  wanted  you  to  take  proper  care  of  yourself," 
he  clumsily  explained. 

Mary  Braddock  laughed  softly. 

"  How  touchingly  interested  in  me  you  are  !  "  she 
said.  "  I  'm  not  in  the  least  disturbed  because  you 
have  neither  hat  nor  coat.  Come." 

And  she  stepped  on  to  the  porch  and  thence  to 
the  wooded  drive-way  that  led  through  the  sloping 
lawns. 

The  moon  hung  ominously  low  over  the  bare  tree- 
tops  and  shed  a  pale,  uncanny  light  upon  them. 
There  was  a  smell  of  frosted  grass  already  in  the  air, 


A   CHANCE    ENCOUNTER.  l6l 

despite  the  early  season,  and  the  gravel  of  the  newly- 
made  road  crunched  as  they  walked  over  it  among 
the  weird  shadows  that  to  Jarvis'  distorted  fancy 
seemed  to  stretch  out  skinny,  crooked  arms,  as  if  to 
draw  him  back  into  the  surrounding  darkness.  From 
circumstances  diametrically  opposed,  both,  as  they 
strolled  mysteriously  through  the  checks  of  moon- 
light and  shade,  were  for  some  time  silent. 

It  was  a  clear,  cool  night,  but  it  was  not  the  air  that 
made  Jarvis  shiver.  Except  from  the  corner  of  his 
eye  he  dared  not  a  look  at  the  woman  beside  him. 
Once  his  swinging  hand  brushed  the  soft  cloak  that 
hung  from  her  shoulders  and  he  drew  back,  remem- 
bering again  that  walk  with  Peggy  through  the  old 
Yard.  Somehow,  it  all  seemed  so  long  ago. 

He  was  beset  by  a  terrible,  overmastering  fear.  All 
the  foolish  dread  of  the  early  evening  had  now 
recoiled  upon  him  with  a  double  force.  He  felt 
utterly  helpless,  altogether  powerless  to  resist.  He 
was  either  quite  subservient  to  the  will  of  this  woman, 
or  else  he  was  the  puppet  of  a  fate  still  more  relentless 
and  irresistible. 

For  the  moment  he  was,  besides,  profoundly  em- 
barrassed. Peggy  might  be  expected  to  reappear  at 
any  time.  Yet  he  was  uncertain  whether  he  wanted 
her  to  do  so  or  not.  Her  coming  would  rescue  him,  for 
the  time  at  least,  from  a  situation  sufficiently  anoma- 
lous and  even  tragic  enough  in  its  possibilities,  but  it 

ii 


162  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

must  likewise  discover  him  in  the  midst  of  an  inter- 
view at  the  best  peculiar,  at  the  worst  clandestine. 
He  was  guilty  and  he  expected  suspicion.  Divided 
between  extreme  fear  and  palpitating  suspense,  he 
walked  like  a  sheep  to  the  shambles. 

On  her  side,  Mary  Braddock  was  tossed  about  by 
emotions  equally  conflicting,  though  absolutely  differ- 
ent. Exactly  why  she  had  brought  him  here  she 
would  have  found  it  hard  indeed  to  tell.  She  was 
neither  a  vicious  nor  a  revengeful  woman.  Above 
all  things  else,  she  was  first  passionate,  then  selfish, 
and  then  good-natured.  But  when  either  the  first  or 
the  second  of  these  attributes — they  are  too  common 
to  be  called  faults  —  was  uppermost,  everything  else 
in  her  was  swept  down  before  it.  To-night  she  found 
the  first  two  combined  in  the  possession  of  her  soul. 
At  other  times  perfectly  humane,  at  such  moments 
she  could  be  calculatingly  cruel.  In  most  moods 
easy  and  malleable,  she  was  now  as  hard  as  flint. 

After  the  first  shock,  she  had,  in  letting  Dick  Jarvis 
drift  away  from  her,  neither  distress  on  her  own 
account  nor  remorse  upon  his.  The  scene  of  her 
life  in  which  he  had  played  so  prominent  a  part  was 
to  her  mind,  so  far  as  she  herself  was  concerned,  as 
insignificant  as  it  had  been  brief.  Their  paths  had 
diverged  and  it  was  not  very  likely  that,  should  they 
again  draw  near,  there  would  be  much  in  common 
left  between  them.  So,  after  a  weak  and  sporadic 


A  CHANCE  ENCOUNTER.  163 

attempt  at  correspondence,  inspired  almost  from  the 
first,  by  the  dread  of  a  too  jarring  conclusion,  she  had 
thought  she  would  be  very  willing  to  let  this  lover 
pass  shortly  out  from  her  existence  and  sooner  or 
later  from  her  memory. 

It  was  not  so.  She  had  acted  her  part  so  well,  or 
so  ill,  that  she  lost  sight  of  the  paradox  and,  to  some 
slight  degree,  lived  her  r61e.  It  was  a  fatal  mistake. 
Most  of  us  are  apt  to  confound  our  pride  with  our 
hearts,  and  hers  suffered  like  Dick's  when  the  inevi- 
table ending  came.  It  was,  then,  with  a  feeling  that 
she  honestly  mistook  for  a  better,  that  she  wrote  the 
final  note  meant  to  set  the  period.  When  chagrin, 
like  most  other  things,  proved  only  temporary,  she 
had,  toward  him,  as  divorced  from  her,  nothing  but 
good-will.  She  wanted  to  see  him  prosper.  She 
regarded  him  as  a  boy,  but  she  was  keen-sighted 
enough  to  observe  in  him  possibilities  that  she  was 
eager  to  admire  and  anxious  to  see  realised.  She 
wanted  him  to  succeed. 

This  fresh  meeting  had  been  to  her  as  great  a 
surprise  as  it  had  been  to  him.  Pride  had  at  last 
healed  itself  with  the  balm  of  fresh  conquests.  Life 
was  still  too  young  to  regret  those  past.  He  had 
been  out  of  her  sight  and  she  had  neither  the  desire 
nor  the  ability  to  keep  him  in  her  mind,  but  although 
in  these  matters  of  minor  import  she  was  sufficiently 
mistress  of  herself  not  to  display  her  feelings,  yet  to 


1 64  JARVIS  OF   HARVARD. 

meet  him  again  so  suddenly  and  in  such  circumstances 
was  a  genuine  shock  to  her. 

The  first  glance  at  him  was  enough.     As  she  saw 
him  standing  on  the  stairs,  she  felt  she  could  not  lose 
him  yet.     In  an  instant  she  had  reviewed  the  field  of 
battle  and,  like  a  good  general,  estimated  the  forces 
at  her  command  and  the  host  that  would  be  arrayed 
against  her.     Not  one  word  or  action,  however  slight, 
had,  during  the  continuance  of  the  dinner,  escaped 
her  observation.     She  saw  much  clearer  than  any  of 
the  other  actors,  just  which  way  the  play  was  going. 
She  observed  in  Jarvis  the  growth  of  an  affection  of 
which  as   yet  he  was  himself  unconscious,  and  she 
noted  in  Peggy,  who  could  conceal  nothing,  an  admir- 
ation for  her  cousin  that  bordered  very  closely  upon 
something  more  defined.     Mary  liked  the    girl  and 
could  not  have  wished  that  any  ill  should  befall  her. 
The    step  was  a   short  one  to   the   conclusion   that 
an   attachment   for    Jarvis   would,    for   a   variety   of 
reasons,  prove  in  the  last  degree  disastrous.     In  the 
first  place,  he  was  ridiculously  young.     He  had  much 
to  see  and  learn  before  he  could  possibly  understand 
himself,  and  as  for  his  understanding  Peggy,  Mary 
could  easily  see  that  was  impossible.     But  more  than 
all  this,  he  was  not,  by  reason  of  his  history,  the  man 
to  make  a  husband  for  her.     Such  a  woman  could 
only  take  as  much  in  exchange  for  herself  as  she  gave. 

On  his  part,  too,  Jarvis  had  everything  to  lose  and 


A  CHANCE   ENCOUNTER.  165 

nothing  to  gain  by  an  early  marriage.  What  talent 
he  possessed  needed  every  moment  of  University 
training  that  could  possibly  be  given  it.  To  permit, 
when  one  was  able  to  prevent,  even  the  threat  of  a 
break  in  so  necessary  a  course  of  preparation  was,  for 
any  of  his  friends,  a  crime  capital.  She  knew  that, 
however  he  might  imagine  his  ideals  shattered  and 
his  knowledge  of  the  world  enlarged,  he  must  ever 
essentially  remain  a  dreamer  of  dreams,  and  that  so 
long  as  he  was  this,  she,  as  a  woman  of  the  world, 
would  always  possess  a  charm  for  him  and  exercise, 
at  least  while  tangibly  present,  a  ruling  influence 
upon  his  character. 

Last,  and  most  important  of  all,  she  believed  him 
bound  to  her  by  the  chain  of  first  sin  as  she  knew  her- 
self to  be  bound  to  another.  Her  passionate  selfish- 
ness declared  her  unable,  even  if  not  unwilling,  to 
weaken  one  link  of  his  shackles.  She  was  not  so 
blind  as  to  mistake  that  selfishness  of  her  motives,  yet 
she  honestly  thought  that  the  fulfilment  of  her  argu- 
ments would  lead  not  only  to  the  accomplishment  of 
her  own  desires,  but  to  his  eternal  welfare  as  well. 
Fartlm  than  this  she  did  not  attempt  to  go. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

MELODRAMA   IN    LITTLE. 

IT  is  difficult  to  break  such  a  silence  as  they  had 
kept  in  their  walk  from  the  house.  Neither  was  in  a 
hurry  to  open  the  conversation  which  obviously 
impended.  Jarvis  was  frankly  afraid  and  Mary  was 
not  quite  certain  what,  when  once  it  was  started,  she 
really  wanted  to  say.  As  is  usual  in  such  cases,  the 
fates,  by  taking  the  matter  entirely  into  their  own 
hands,  kindly  relieved  her  of  all  responsibility. 

"  Your  cousin  is  a  very  charming  girl  and  a  very 
pretty  one,"  she  said  irrelevantly. 

"  Yes?"  replied  Jarvis  with  an  interrogative  smile. 
Somehow  he  scented  an  air  of  embarrassment  about 
his  companion  that  went  far  toward  relieving  his  own 
sense  of  alarm. 

"  I  met  her  at  Bar  Harbor,"  Mary  pursued.  "  She 
left  just  before  you  came  last  summer." 

"  I  think  I  'd  heard  that  she  'd  been  up  there  early 
in  the  summer,  but,  strange  enough,  I  have  never 
heard  you  speak  of  her  before." 

"Really?     We  got  along  famously,  I  assure  you." 

"  And  quite  enjoyed  yourselves,  I  suppose." 


MELODRAMA   IN   LITTLE.  167 

"  To  be  sure." 

Jarvis  was  quick  to  follow  up  the  advantage  that  he 
thought  he  had  gained.  Perhaps,  after  all,  here  was 
the  opportunity  for  freedom. 

"  No,  not  to  be  sure,"  he  said.  "  When  we  were  in 
Philadelphia,  you  had  quite  another  tale  to  tell  me. 
You  said  you  could  scarcely  endure  it  there  before  I 
came." 

Quite  unconsciously  his  voice  had  dropped  into  a 
minor  key  of  gentle  reproach.  In  an  instant  she  had 
taken  him  up,  believing,  living  every  word. 

"  Oh,  Dick,"  she  said,  laying  one  throbbing  white 
hand  upon  his  arm,  "  Won't  you  ever  understand  that 
we  must  play  this  game  to  the  finish?  Don't  you  see 
how  it  is?" 

He  looked  down  at  her  for  a  moment  in  the  strange 
half-light.  She  was  quivering  with  emotion,  but  he 
could  not  see  that.  He  had  to  contract  his  brows 
and  frown  intently  to  distinguish  even  her  outlines, 
but  what  he  did  manage  to  see  set  his  fears,  for  the 
moment,  at  rest. 

He  caught  her  white  wrist.  It  was  not  the  caress 
of  a  lover,  not  a  detention,  but  an  attack. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  he  asked  slowly  and  be- 
tween his  teeth,  after  the  manner  of  the  villain  in  the 
melodrama,  whom  he  felt  that  he  oddly  resembled. 
"  What  do  you  want  of  me?  " 

But  she  was  not  afraid    of  him.     She  had  at  no 


1 68  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

time  been  that.     At   the  worst  she  had  been   only 
uncertain. 

"Mean?"  she  said,  disregarding  his  second  ques- 
tion. "  Why,  simply  what  I  say.  Whatever  I  have 
suffered,  you  know  that  I  was  in  earnest  when  I  wrote 
you  that  I  'd  never  be  a  stone  about  your  neck." 

"  I  'm  not  so  sure  that  you  would  n't  be  just  that. 
I  'm  not  so  sure  that  you  could  help  yourself,  even  if 
you  wanted  to,  and  I  hardly  believe  that  you  want  to." 

"  I  certainly  imagined  that  you  had  some  little 
proof  of  my  trust  in  you." 

There  was  a  pause  in  which,  as  it  struck  home,  he 
blushed  deeply.  Although  she  could  not  see  the 
blood  it  had  drawn,  she  knew  that  the  shot  had  told 
and  she  hastened  to  proceed,  — 

"  I  think  I  meet  all  the  requirements  when  I  say 
that  I  am  as  ready  now  to  suffer  on  for  your  sake  as 
I  have  been  all  along." 

This  time  she  had  missed  sadly.  He  flung  down 
her  hand  in  disgust. 

"  Suffer,  suffer !  You  talk  as  if  you  were  the  only 
one  to  suffer  !  " 

"  One  finds  it  hard  to  discover  exactly  what  you 
had  to  lose,"  —  she  had  been  about  to  add,  "by  the 
arrangement,"  but  he  took  her  up  before  she  could 
finish. 

"  To  lose?  "  he  cried,  speaking  rapidly  and  regard- 
lessly,  and  yet  lapsing  unconsciously  into  the  stronger 


MELODRAMA   IN  LITTLE.  169 

speech  that  her  presence  seemed  always  to  inspire. 
"  What  I  had  to  lose  ?  My  belief  in  man,  my  trust 
in  woman,  my  faith  in  God  —  that's  all  I  lost.  I  sold 
my  inheritance  in  all  Nature ;  I  sold  you  my  brain 
and  my  possibilities.  I  opened  the  white  page  of  my 
soul  to  you,  and  what  did  you  write  on  it?  You 
know  the  word.  You  could  write  but  the  one.  I 
came  to  you  a  mere  boy  and  you  sent  me  back  to  the 
mother  that  bore  me.  — Do  you  think  I  can  ever  kiss 
her  lips  again  after  —  that?  And  then  you  talk 
about  suffering  !  You  grant  an  amnesty  to  me  \  Did 
/  ever  rob  you  of  anything?  Did  /  ever  smutch  your 
soul?  Never!  And  you  know  it.  You  actually 
had  the  audacity  to  tell  me  so  yourself." 
"  I  am  surely  rewarded  for  my  frankness." 
She  was  standing  erect  before  him,  her  hands 
clenched  at  her  sides,  her  low  even  tones  contrasting 
strangely  with  the  intense  swift  utterance  of  his 
speech. 

In  an  instant  he  was  stricken  sullen  and  silent; 
abashed,  angry  with  her  for  exciting  him  to  brutality. 
Then  he  broke  out  in  a  dogged  mutter,  — 

"  If  I  have  lost  the    gentlemanly  sense,  it  is   you 
whom  I  have  to  thank  for  my  misfortune." 
"  Do  they  teach  this  also  at  Harvard  ?  " 
He  was  blind  with  shame.     That  the  words  were 
identical   with   those   which   Peggy  had    once   used 
served  only  to  augment  his  anger  and  self-contempt 


1 70  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  to  force  him  to  insult  her,  however 
unintentionally  she  might  do  so,  was  for  her,  the  most 
profitable  move  possible.  He  saw  only  that  he  had 
been  insufferably  rude,  inexcusably  brutal.  The 
desire  for  atonement  of  whatever  sort  was  at  once 
paramount.  His  every  other  sentiment  and  thought 
vanished  before  a  wild  anxiety  for  penance  and  repar- 
ation. She  was,  after  all,  a  woman,  surpassingly 
beautiful  and  unfortunate,  and,  there  was  no  denying 
it,  they  were  slaves  in  the  same  galley. 

The  moon  had  swung  higher  in  the  heavens  and 
cleared  the  tree-tops  in  its  ascent.  A  cloud  which  had 
covered  it  for  some  minutes  before  broke  free,  as  if 
from  an  embrace,  and  a  strange  new  light,  a  wonder- 
ful white  radiance,  poured  over  the  figure  of  Mary 
Braddock  as  Dick  looked  at  her.  Divinely  tall  she 
seemed  to  him  then  and  he  could  see  at  last  the  ill- 
suppressed  emotion  which  shook  her  from  head  to 
foot,  —  the  dilating  nostrils,  the  haughty  mouth,  the 
angry  eyes. 

Nor  did  he  seem  less  of  a  revelation  to  her.  She 
noted  well  the  handsome  face  intensified  in  its  beauty 
by  the  passion  of  the  moment,  the  broad  white  fore- 
head on  which  the  brown  hair  had  hung  one  damp  curl, 
the  creation  of  the  mist,  and  for  one  instant  there 
swelled  in  her  heart  a  strange  interweaving  of  pity 
for  him  and  for  herself  that  brought  oddly  to  her 
ears  the  strains  of  the  renunciation-song  in  "  La 


MELODRAMA  IN  LITTLE.  I/I 

Traviata."  The  next  he  had  taken  her  in  his  arms 
and  she  knew  the  futility  of  longer  struggling  vyith 
herself. 

"  You  are  mine,  Dick,"  she  said. 

It  was  a  bad  discord.  He  withdrew  himself  almost 
violently. 

"No!"  he  cried. 

"  Yes.  What's  the  use  of  denying  it?  What's 
the  use  of  struggling  against  it?  You  are  mine." 

"  Absurd !  No,  no  !  I  am  my  own  and  no  one's 
else.  Eternally  my  own." 

The  storm  had  burst  at  last.  The  curtain  had  gone 
up  upon  the  melodrama. 

"  Oh,"  she  complained,  "  why  do  you  make  it 
necessary  to  explain  it  to  you?  Don't  you  see  how 
it  is?" 

He  tried  to  laugh  it  off  and  failed. 

"  Through  a  glass  darkly,"  he  said. 

But  she  was  threateningly  calm. 

"  Then  you  must  see  it  face  to  face  as  I  do.  It 
is  n't  pretty,  but  it 's  fearfully  true." 

"  To  be  commonplace,  that  is  usual  with  truths." 

"  It  is  the  case  with  this  one,  at  any  rate.  You 
know  how  fragile  everything  is ;  how  futile  promises 
are.  Marriage  is,  after  all,  only  '  an  oath,  and  oaths 
must  have  their  day.'  But  the  one  tie  on  earth 
that  wherever  a  man  is  and  whatever  he  be — still 
holds  him  fast,  binds  you  to  me," 


1/2  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

"  You  are  right,  it  has  n't  a  pleasant  face.  —  You 
mean  — ?" 

"  The  only  bond  in  this  miserable  life  that  won't, 
that  can't  be  broken,  —  the  chain  of  first  sin." 

She  was  giving  to  his  most  exaggerated  fancies  a 
local  habitation  and  a  name,  but  he  bore  up  with  the 
courage  of  a  martyr. 

"  Really,"  he  said,  "  I  fail  to  see  why  the  first  holds 
stronger  than  the  second.  And  does  the  second  hold 
stronger  than  the  third?  Do  we  travel  in  an  intel- 
lectual perspective  toward  a  moral  vanishing-point? 
Don't  you  remember  the  chap  they  asked  about  in 
the  Bible  —  the  fellow  with  the  seven  wives?  " 

"  You  ask  why  more  to  me  than  to  all  the  others? 
Oh,  it 's  far  too  hideous  for  laughter  !  It 's  so  awfully 
simple  and  satisfactory.  The  others  were  the  conse- 
quences ;  I  am  the  cause.  Good  God,  don't  you 
think  I  'm  held  fast  to  somebody?  Or  do  you  think 
I  was  always  bad  ?  " 

Instinctively  he  had  shrunk  from  the  impetuosity  of 
her  assault  and  he  was  now  leaning  against  a  tree  as 
if  for  support  What  he  tried  to  say  was,  — 

"  For  so  the  whole  round  world  is  every  way 
Bound  by  gold  chains  about  the  feet  of  God." 

But  she  had  been  right  again.     It  was  true;  it  was 
too  hideous  for  laughter ;  and  what  came  to  his  lips 
was  only, — 
"  Go  on." 


MELODRAMA   IN   LITTLE.  173 

"  Oh,  I  can't  go  on.  It  will,  though.  I  can't  free 
you  any  more  than  you  can  free  yourself.  You  are  a 
Frankenstein.  You  have  created  your  monster,  and 
you  can't  get  away  from  it.  You  must  just  go  on 
living  with  it  till  it  kills  you.  That 's  what  we 're  all 
doing." 

He  was  convinced,  and  yet  he  would  not  surrender 
without  a  fight-  On  a  sudden,  one  hope  presented 
itself.  It  was  the  thought  of  Peggy.  Had  she  not 
said  it  was  never  too  late  ? 

Had  Mary  not  been  carried  away  by  an  unquestion- 
ing belief  in  her  own  eloquence  and  in  every  word  she 
said,  she  would  surely  have  pitied  him  in  noting  the 
way  in  which  the  haggard  young  face  of  the  big 
broken  fellow  lighted  up  at  the  first  faint  gleam  of 
what  she  thought  an  impossible  hope. 

"  Is  that  all?  "  he  asked,  hoarsely. 

"Isn't  it  enough?  I'm  your  real  mother.  I 
brought  you  into  the  real  world,  the  world  in  which 
you  must  live,  from  which  you  can't  escape  till  the 
day  of  your  death.  —  If  you  can  then." 

"  How  preposterous  !  You  are  denying  the  whole 
doctrine  of  repentance  !  " 

"  Not  at  all.  You  can  repent  as  much  as  you  like ; 
but  if  you  conceal  your  sin  it  will  rankle  in  your 
heart  and  master  you  in  the  end.  It 's  the  inevitable 
law  of  being." 

"I  can't  imagine  what  you  are  driving  at" 


174  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

"  Simply  this :  Your  sin  must  find  you  out.  You 
must  pay  the  penalty.  The  penalty  of  this  particular 
sin  is  unhappiness  to  the  end.  It  will  either  drive 
you  to  excesses  that  will  end  your  life  miserably,  or 
—  if  you  endeavour  to  forget  it  and  to  be  respectable, 
it  will  force  you  to  concealment  and  hypocrisy  and 
secret  shame  and  self-contempt." 

"  Then  you  do  away —  don't  you? —  with  the  pos- 
sibility of  searing  the  conscience  and  the  probability 
of  purging  it?  " 

"  Oh,  there  may  be  those  who  can  sear  it  —  I 
doubt  it,  but  there  may  be.  Yet,  at  all  events,  you  are 
not  one  of  them,  nor  am  I." 

"  And  of  purging  it?" 

"  You  might  do  that.  But  I  don't  think  you  can. 
If  you  succeed  you  will  still  have  to  pay  the  penalty 
of  unhappiness  and  misery,  for  you  can't  forget.  You 
could  not  live  happily  with  a  pure  woman  and  still 
remember,  even  if  she  forgave  you.  And  she 
would  n't.  They  only  sometimes  think  they  do.  In 
the  end  they  turn.  They  must  feel  themselves 
superior  in  their  virtue,  and  her  very  goodness  would 
be  a  continual  reminder  of  your  evil,  and  she  would 
always  suspect  you.  In  such  circumstances  you 
could  not  forget." 

"  Oh,  if  you  please,  we  '11  talk  of  such  circumstances 
afterwards,  —  if  we  must  talk  of  them  at  all." 

"  Then  what  do  you  think?  " 


MELODRAMA  IN   LITTLE.  1/5 

"  I  think  this :  That  a  man  can  wash  himself  clean. 
Why,  I  'm  only  one  of  a  million  like  me !  It 's  all 
absurd,  I  tell  you !  Surely,  a  man  who  has  a  pure 
love  in  his  heart  can  never  wholly  decline  upon  mere 
lust." 

"  And  you  are  wrong.  '  Mere '  is  a  dangerous 
word  to  apply  to  so  formidable,  so  treacherous  a  foe. 
You  should  n't  so  contemptuously  limit  the  strongest 
of  passions  —  one  that  has  seized  the  generic  name 
for  all  of  them.  Once  enthroned  in  the  heart  as  it 
has  been  in  yours,  it  can  never  be  ousted.  Oh,  I  'm 
not  talking  generalities  !  I  'm  speaking  from  obser- 
vation and  terrible  personal  experience." 

"  Perhaps,  but  I  can't  believe  we  were  given  strong 
desires  and  weak  resistance  for  damnation  only. 
There  must  be  a  plan.  There  must  be  some  secret, 
some  great  use  for  it  all.  If  it  is  n't  to  strengthen  us 
in  the  end  by  our  conquest  of  it,  what  is  it  for?  " 

"  You  were  not  given  weak  resistance.  Your  whole 
premise  is  wrong.  Your  resistance  was  not  weak  but 
you  did  n't  use  it,  you  did  n't  want  to  use  it,  you 
weakened  it  yourself." 

"  I  was  given  illusions,  distorted  conceptions  of 
life." 

"  No,  you  gave  them  to  yourself.  You  carefully 
collected  them.  You  went  hunting  for  them." 

"  As  an  irresponsible  child  —  yes." 

"  Well,  whether  you  make  your  bed  yourself  or 


1/6  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

some  one  else  makes  it  for  you,  you  must  lie  on  it  all 
the  same.  It 's  no  more  unjust  that  you  should  suffer 
for  what  you  did  as  a  child  than  for  what  was  done 
by  your  parents  and  your  parents'  parents  years 
before  you  were  even  born." 

"  It 's  a  dangerous  philosophy." 

"What  is  ever  more  dangerous  than  the  truth? 
Neither  by  chance,  nor  will,  nor  weakness,  are  we  al- 
together what  we  are.  Why,  birth  binds  us  to  a 
relentless  past,  an  impenetrable  past,  and  at  the  same 
time  hides  it  from  our  sight.  Life  ties  us  for  good  or 
bad  to  those  who  are  to  come.  Even  death  does  n't 
break  our  fetter.  We  're  each  only  a  link  in  an  end- 
less chain  that  forever  makes  toward  the  ideal,  and, 
forever  returning  upon  itself,  falls  short." 

"  Whoever  created  good,  created  evil  too.  You 
can  hardly  suppose  it  ordained  if  not  necessary  to  the 
continuance  of  life." 

"  You  are  too  general.  It 's  the  specific  case  I  'm 
talking  about.  You  must  always  be  the  slave  of  your 
desires,  because  you  have  been  forging  them  too  long 
to  be  able  to  break  away  from  them  now.  Besides, 
what  sin  is  more  fatal  than  unassuaged  desire?  It 's  a 
slow  disease  that  will  kill  you  if  you  let  it  go  on,  and 
yet  one  for  which  you  will  know  the  cure  is  always 
waiting  just  outside  your  very  door.  Do  you  imagine 
you  can  forego  that?  " 

"  I  know  by  sad  experience  that  the  cure  is  not  in 


MELODRAMA   IN  LITTLE.  177 

the  indulgence.  That  way  lies  the  mad  pursuit  of 
the  unattainable.  It 's  like  trying  to  catch  a  beauti- 
ful flame  and  only  getting  burnt  fingers  for  your 
trouble." 

"  But,  however  high  your  purpose,  you  personally 
are  physically,  intellectually,  morally,  incapable  of 
succeeding  in  it.  You  are  an  epicure,  or  at  least  a 
poet,  not  an  ascetic." 

"  Well,  if  I  fail  it 's  worth  the  trying  for,  any- 
way." 

"Why,  you  'd  kill  yourself." 

"  If  I  drop,  it  will  be  with  my  eyes  fixed  on  the 
goal." 

"  Much  good  would  that  do  you.  Pshaw !  You 
imagine  you  are  an  abstract  philosopher ;  you  're 
only  a  drowning  man  catching  at  straws." 

"  No.  I  am  sure  of  one  thing,  anyhow.  Whoever 
has  known  truth  and  goodness  and  beauty  shan't  be 
tempted  by  anything  less." 

"  Do  you  really  mean  to  say  that  good  can  come 
out  of  evil  ?  That  evil  was  ordained  for  nothing  else  ? 
Do  you  mean  to  say  that  lust  —  to  call  things  by 
their  names  —  makes  saints  and  not  voluptuaries? 
Remember,  there  was  only  one  Saint  Augustine." 

"  I  don't  believe  it.  I  think  there  were  and  are 
lots  of  them.  Roses  grow  from  graves." 

"  Really?  But  we  are  not  discussing  '  Natural  Law 
in  the  Spiritual  World.'  I  think  you  '11  find  that  love 

12 


1/8  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

can't  come  in  where  lust  is  —  no,  nor  where  it  has 
been." 

"  And  yet  you  say  that  you  love  me." 

"  Except,  I  mean  always,  a  devotion  for  a  com- 
mon sufferer.  Otherwise  lust  is  the  vandal  pas- 
sion. It  leaves  only  desolation  behind  it.  There 
is  no  room  for  anything  else  while  it  is  with  you, 
and  nothing  remains  for  another  where  it  has 
trod." 

"  I  'm  afraid  you  fail  to  alter  my  conviction  that  a 
man  can  make  himself.  Stubborn  persistence,  sheer, 
blank  determination,  will  accomplish  anything." 

"  So  you  think  that  sin  has  the  power  to  open  up 
all  the  beauty  of  your  soul?  " 

"  I  think  that  sin  abandoned  can  wake  all  that 's 
good  in  a  man;  can  rouse  him  from  sloth  and  dul- 
ness  to  strength  and  a  clearer  perception  of  things ; 
can  translate  him  into  a  new  sphere  where,  under  the 
stress  of  action,  the  essential  self  will  show.  Why 
it 's  preposterous,  it 's  monstrous,  this  teaching  of 
yours  !  You  preach  the  vilest  kind  of  fatalism.  If  a 
man  is  strong  enough  to  renounce  the  things  that  are 
evil,  and  cleave  to  the  things  that  are  good,  he  is  all 
the  better  for  having  passed  through  the  furnace,  all 
the  finer,  higher,  nobler." 

"  If  he  is  strong  enough.  But  who  is?  Very  few. 
You  are  n't.  My  poor  boy,  I  know  you  so  much 
better  than  you  know  yourself!  You  are  n't  unusual 


MELODRAMA  IN  LITTLE.  1/9 

You  are  only  beating  at  your  prison-door  as  every 
other  madman  does  at  first.  Your  reasoning  is  only 
raving.  You  are  confounding  the  effects  of  sin  with 
those  of  repentance." 

"  Well,  I  repent." 

"  You  think  you  do,  but  you  have  n't  been  really 
tempted  yet.  You  pursued  evil  once,  and  now  that 
you  have  found  it  a  snare  this  time,  you  imagine 
you  '11  never  be  dazzled  by  it  again." 

"  It  was  n't  evil,  but  good  that  I  —  that  all  of  us  — 
seek  that  first  time.  We  are  poor,  blind  boys  and 
girls  groping  for  a  larger  life.  The  kisses  we  give 
each  other  are  n't  given  to  the  real  lips,  but  to  some 
pure  ideal,  some  lofty  image.  Perhaps  no  man  can 
ever  find  that  higher  thing,  but  he  ought  surely  to 
leave  the  shams  when  they  're  discovered,  and  try  to 
get  nearer  to  his  hope  by  the  best  means  at  his  dis- 
posal. I  thought  it  was  a  new  Star  of  Bethlehem  that 
I  was  following.  Must  I  be  punished  because  it 
proved  a  jack-o'-lantern  from  the  Slough  of  De- 
spond?" 

"  But  sin  does  n't  take  any  one  unaware,  if  that 's 
what  you  really  mean.  It  is  precisely  because  it 's 
gradual  that  the  descent  to  hell  is  so  easy." 

"  Whoever  made  my  soul  meant  that  soul  which  so 
yearns  for  Him  to  be  led  blindfold  through  the 
excess  of  love,  — -  the  pursuit  of  the  ideal,  —  not  to 
hell,  but  to  heaven.  That  is  where  my  faith,  such 


l8o  JARVIS  OF  HARVARD. 

as  it  is,  takes  its  stand.  We  are  to  see  the  supreme 
beauty  of  good  by  proving  the  extreme  ugliness  of 
vice." 

"  My  dear,  that 's  all  very  well  to  say,  but  it 's  too 
good  for  this  world.  You  would  n't  marry  any  but 
a  pure  woman  —  bad  men  never  will  —  but  if  you  go 
about  preaching  such  heresy  to  her  —  and  its  worse 
than  my  fatalism  —  you  will  be  striking  at  the  very 
fundamental  principles  on  which  her  purity  depends. 
Moral  pioneers  never  have  an  easy  time  of  it.  Against 
them  are  drawn  up  the  priests  and  priestesses  —  es- 
pecially the  priestesses — of  home  and  custom,  every 
one  to  whom  tradition  is  synonymous  with  wisdom. 
The  loyal,  the  faithful,  the  hypocritical  and  the 
hypercritical,  the  good,  the  brave,  the  gentle,  the 
easy-going,  the  pure,  all  these  will  prove  more  cruel 
to  you  than  the  wildest  Dahomeyans." 

"Then  I  must  die  for  tasting  a  little  honey?  You 
mean  to  say,  I  suppose,  that  there  is  no  compassion 
under  heaven  —  or  in  it." 

"None  —  absolutely  none.  If  we  pitied  we  would 
only  draw  down  suspicion  on  ourselves.  Men  think 
that  those  only  who  are  in  the  same  boat  can  really 
feel  for  each  other,  and  so  our  secrets  would  all  be 
laid  bare  if  we  dared  to  show  any  sympathy." 

"  Well,  we  can  never  agree.  What 's  the  use  of 
arguing  about  it?  We  are  only  like  the  Scholiasts 
Erasmus  objected  to  for  squabbling  about  whether 


MELODRAMA   IN    LITTLE.  l8l 

sin  is  a  privation  in  the  soul  or  a  spot  upon  it.  You 
can't  convince  me." 

"  Time  will." 

"  Until  it  does  I  '11  continue  to  try  to  make  myself 
worthy  of  a  pure  woman's  love." 

It  was  a  base  thing  for  him  to  say,  but  she  did  not 
heed  it. 

"  You  are  like  a  horse  plunging  into  a  fire.  Let 
me  prophesy.  I  tell  you  solemnly  that  this  woman, 
whenever  she  crosses  your  path,  will,  sooner  or  later, 
cast  you  down  deeper  than  you  ever  were  before. 
Oh,  there  are  depths  and  depths !  Your  sin,  I  say, 
must  find  you  out.  And  whoever  she  be,  and 
however  dearly  she  loves  you,  the  mark  of  the  beast 
is  upon  you  and  the  blindest  affection  must  see  it. 
And  upon  that  day  —  either  because  you  have  fool- 
ishly confessed,  or  because  you  have  returned  again 
to  your  sin  —  she  will  turn  you  out  of  her  heart  and 
send  you  back  to  me.  '  Your  own  iniquities  shall 
take  you,  you  shall  be  holden  by  the  cords  of  your 
sins.' " 

Jarvis  could  not  but  be  a  little  awed.  She  spoke 
in  an  even  and  subdued  voice,  in  a  tone  of  sad  coun- 
sel, but  to  him  her  words  seemed  to  come  with  all 
the  thunder  of  an  irrevocable  sentence.  She  was 
still  standing  in  the  full  moonlight  and  looked,  in  her 
white  drapery,  like  the  relentless  occult  priestess  of 
some  forgotten  heathen  god.  Far  off  in  the  vil- 


1 82  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

lage  a  bell  was  tolling  solemnly,  its  strokes  rolling 
through  the  woods  and  echoing  among  the  hills, 
heavy  with  doom. 

"  Mary,"  he  asked  in  a  low  voice,  "  do  you  honestly 
think  it 's  no  use?  " 

"  A  union  between  virtue  and  vice?  I  think  it  is 
no  use.  The  only  men  fit  to  marry  are  those  who 
have  just  married  discretion  and  have  from  the  be- 
ginning set  limits  to  their  desires." 

"  Then,  what  do  you  want  me  to  do?  " 

"  I  want  you  to  submit  to  the  law  of  life ;  to  play 
the  game  fair  and  to  the  finish,  even  if  it 's  a  losing 
one.  You  have  only  one  hope — your  talent.  You 
ought  to  be  unutterably  thankful  that  you  have  that. 
It 's  more  than  most  of  us  have.  You  can  lose  your- 
self perhaps,  in  the  cultivation  of  that.  You  cer- 
tainly cannot  in  anything  else.  You  have  years 
before  you.  You  're  only  a  boy.  Give  all  your  voli- 
tion, time,  fortune,  body,  brain,  heart,  to  that.  If 
you  imagine  yourself  in  love  it  will  mean  the  break- 
ing up  of  your  College  course  and  lose  you  that  last 
hope. 

"  I  'm  not  thinking  about  myself,"  she  continued, 
"  You  will  come  back  to  me  in  time,  because  you 
can't  help  yourself.  You  see,  I  am,  as  always,  per- 
fectly frank  with  you.  I  want  you  to  live;  to  see 
life  in  its  every  phase ;  to  study  it  as  well  as  your 
books;  to  suffer;  to  fight;  to  make  your  soul  an 


MELODRAMA   IN  LITTLE.  183 

inn  —  a  mere  resting  place,  but  nothing  more — for 
all  the  light  and  shade  of  life,  and  all  it  comprehends, 
—  every  pain,  every  joy,  every  passion.  To  make 
yourself,  since  you  cannot  be  an  angel,  at  least  an 
artist.  The  end  belongs  to  Fate." 

"Those  were  the  very  arguments  that  brought  me 
v/here  I  am  now." 

"  I  dare  say.  And  now  your  own  only  chance  is 
:o  follow  them  out  to  a  consistent  finish." 

"  I  am  done  with  them  for  good  and  all." 

"  Then  I  am  sorry  for  you." 

"  I  shall  leave  here  to-morrow  morning  —  to-night 
if  there  is  a  train." 

"  Ah,  you  are  afraid  of  me  !  " 

"  Perhaps." 

"  But  I  do  not  intend  to  stay." 

"  Nevertheless,  I  am  going." 

"  Then  I  shall  say  auf  Wiedersehen! 

"No— good  bye." 

"Auf  Wiedersehen" 

Again  she  put  out  her  hand  kindly.  She  had 
been  convinced  by  her  own  words.  He  bent  over 
her  fingers  and  kissed  them. 

"  I  think  you  were  in  earnest,"  he  said,  "and  I  owe 
you  many  more  apologies  than  I  can  make." 

"  I  was  in  earnest.  But  how  will  you  explain  this 
flight  to  Mrs.  Bartol?  And  to  Peggy?  " 

It  was  the  first  time  she  had  used  the  diminutive 


1 84  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

by  which  he  knew  his  cousin  and  the  words  jarred 
upon  him. 

"  Oh,  don't  let's  discuss  her,"  he  said. 

Mary  caught  him  by  the  shoulders  and  wheeled 
him  about,  looking  close  into  his  face.  There  was 
a  moment  of  silence.  Then  she  said,  shaking  her 
head  and  smiling  at  her  own  seriousness,  — 

"  Oh,  Dick,  Dick,  the  woman  has  come  already !  " 

"What  are  you  driving  at  now?"  he  asked,  half 
angry,  wholly  amazed. 

She  thought  there  was  fear  in  his  tone.  Jealousy, 
never  far  from  the  heart  of  the  best  of  women,  surged 
up  into  her  eyes  and  blinded  her.  His  imagined 
timidity  served  only  to  enrage  her. 

"  Until  we  meet,"  she  said.  "  Meanwhile,  you  love 
your  cousin." 

He  returned  her  stare  blankly.  Then  it  was  in- 
deed as  if  scales  had  fallen  from  his  eyes. 

"  Yes,"  he  replied. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 
"AT   CARDS    FOR   KISSES." 

THE  predominating  sense  in  Jarvis'  mind  was  one 
pf  amazement.  From  the  time  when,  with  his  lately 
voluble  companion,  he  returned  in  silence  to  the 
house,  until  he  had  finally  made  a  clumsy  escape 
from  beneath  its  roof  and  was  again  well  on  his  way 
to  Cambridge,  he  was  chiefly  occupied  with  a  strenu- 
ous effort  to  accommodate  his  thoughts  to  the  new 
acquaintance  he  had  made  so  unexpectedly  the 
evening  before. 

Verily,  we  know  ourselves  least  of  all  in  this  un- 
knowable universe !  Jarvis  had  been  much  given  to 
the  bad  habit  of  introspection  and  painful  self-analysis 
common  to  young  fellows  of  his  temperament  and 
environment.  He  had  studied  his  own  soul  with  a 
remarkable  zest  that  proved  the  taste  of  gall  not 
wholly  unpleasant  to  him.  He  had  come  to  the 
rather  obvious  conclusion  that  he  was  a  very  bad 
man  indeed  and  now  he  had  suddenly  discovered 
that  he  had  all  along  been  again  working  on  a  mis- 
taken hypothesis. 

There  was  no  doubt  about  it.  Young  as  they  both 
were,  he  was  in  love  with  his  pretty  and  seemingly 


1 86  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

insufficient  and  shallow  cousin.  He  was  so  much  in 
love  with  her  that,  for  the  moment  at  all  events,  he 
would  not  admit  that  she  was  insufficient  or  shallow. 
He  found  it  enough  that  she  was,  in  his  eyes,  beauti- 
ful. Forgetting  the  new  conclusion  that  one's  self  is 
the  thing  most  effectually  concealed  from  one,  he  at 
once  hastened  to  the  plausible  fallacy  that,  as  he  had 
not  understood  his  own  character,  it  was  preposterous 
for  him  to  have  attempted  a  judgment  of  hers.  He 
was  so  perversely  illogical  that  there  could  be  no 
suspicion  of  the  sincerity  of  his  passion. 

The  hope  which  had  flamed  up  within  him  at  his 
new  discovery  was  pathetic  in  its  intensity.  There 
was  no  heed  now  of  the  woman  he  had  so  lately 
feared ;  no  thought  at  all  of  her  who  had  laid  open 
his  soul  for  him.  She  was  almost  forgotten.  At  last 
there  was  a  chance  to  awaken  from  the  horrible  night- 
mare of  the  past  months,  to  shake  off  the  false 
theories,  the  degenerate  views,  and  to  breathe  the 
pure  air  of  the  actual,  the  earth  where  men  lived  and 
worked  and  fought  and  died ;  where  effort  succeeded 
to  lethargy  and  labour  took  the  place  of  despair.  At 
last  there  was  something  for  which  to  hope  and  work 
and  wait. 

It  was  undoubtedly  a  rather  selfish  view  to  take  of 
so  delicate  a  passion.  He  was  regarding  it  for  his 
own  advantages  only.  But  until  lately  he  had  been 
living  in  a  world  where  evil  was  an  intangible,  in- 


"AT   CARDS   FOR  KISSES."  187 

visible  tyrant,  that  could  not  be  assailed  or  propiti- 
ated. He  had  looked  from  that  planet  up  to  the 
light  of  a  better,  but  with  no  purpose,  no  definite 
reward  for  an  endeavour  to  attain  it.  Now  he  was  so 
supplied  with  incentives  that  he  thought  himself  well 
upon  his  aerial  journey.  Besides,  he  was  by  no 
means  less  unselfish  than  most  persons  of  his  age. 
In  that  early  moment  of  young,  joyous  hope,  when 
the  dawn  of  a  first  pure  love  showed  him  a  mirac- 
ulous self  which  he  had  never  dreamed  of  before, 
there  was  no  more  doubt  or  conflict  in  his  heart. 

Certainly  all  possibility  of  failure  seemed  precluded 
by  the  strength  of  the  new  desire.  He  had  spoken  of 
it  to  Mary,  but  since  her  keen  perception  had  seen 
his  inmost  self  and  her  too  ready  tongue  had  pointed 
out  to  him  the  exact  workings  of  his  heart  toward 
Peggy,  he  had  no  thought  of  anything  but  achieve- 
ment. The  ancient  struggle  of  the  love  of  art  against 
the  love  of  woman  was  not  yet  for  him.  The  perfect 
confidence  of  ultimate  success  seized  upon  him  and 
shared  its  rule  with  a  wild  desire  to  begin  this  new 
life  and  work  at  once.  There  was  little  or  no  regret 
at  leaving  his  cousin  behind  him.  The  train  could 
not  travel  fast  enough  toward  the  scene  of  his  coming 
regeneration. 

He  weaved  a  hundred  fond  plans  and  laid  down  as 
many  careful  systems  for  that  metempsychosis,  secure 
in  the  armour  of  a  new  righteousness.  He  had  drawn 


1 88  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

a  ground-floor  corner  room  in  Holworthy.  How  he 
would  work  and  slave  there !  How  bravely  he  would 
face  the  old  temptations  !  He  would  renew  his  body 
by  a  serious  undertaking  in  athletics,  and  then,  with  a 
fresh  lease  of  life,  he  would  take  up  all  the  still  loose 
threads  of  his  studies. 

The  prescribed  forensics  would  be  dull  work,  but 
"  English  B  "  would  prove  plain  sailing.  And  his 
electives  would  be  of  the  best.  He  was  returning 
with  a  fresh  start  and  unhandicapped.  He  had 
wrestled  successfully  with  his  Lysias  and  De  Amicitia 
last  spring ;  had  overcome  the  turgid  German  Com- 
position; read  and  "passed"  in  the  endless  consti- 
tutions of  "  Government  I ;  "  and,  most  formidable  of 
all,  had  laid  that  condition  in  mathematics  which, 
from  a  disembodied  ghost,  had  grown  to  so  living  and 
real  a  terror  for  him.  He  had  read  all  the  prescribed 
extracts  in  history  that  he  had  begun  by  merely 
skimming  over  in  order  to  get  through  his  "  Confer- 
ences," —  and  all  this  without  any  other  incentive  than 
the  desire  to  remain  in  College.  How  simple  it 
would  therefore  be  now  to  take  up  his  work  where 
he  had  laid  it  down  last  June ! 

Nor  did  his  ambition  cease  there.  He  would  write 
regularly  for  the  "  Advocate ;  "  even  the  "  Monthly  " 
should  not  forbid  him.  He  would  finish  his  course 
with  honours  and,  with  a  name  already  made  in  the 
small  College  world,  he  would  set  to  work  and  pro- 


"AT   CARDS   FOR  KISSES."  189 

duce  a  book  that  should  command  the  plaudits  of  the 
larger  world  outside.  Other  men  had  done  it  and  he 
felt  that  the  spirit  once  his  had  only  been  strength- 
ened by  the  suffering  that  it  had  undergone.  Then, 
when  the  air  was  echoing  with  his  name,  he  would  lay 
that  name  and  all  its  honours  at  her  feet,  unworthy 
still,  but  redeemed  and  glorified,  the  dross  burnt 
away,  but  the  metal  pure  and  strong. 

Mallard  would  chaff,  the  Major  would  be  cynical, 
even  the  taciturn  Hardy  would  be  mildly  amazed. 
That  would  be  difficult,  but  he  could  bear  it,  in  a 
measure  he  had  even  already  borne  it,  and  he  could 
thrash  the  three  together  if  they  tried  his  patience  too 
far.  Maggie  Du  Mar  and  the  rest  of  her  stamp  in 
Boston  —  should  they  ever  cross  his  path  again  —  would 
curse  or  cajole  him.  That  would  be  easy.  He  loathed 
the  thought  of  them.  So  intense  was  the  sense  of 
emancipation  that  he  no  longer  thought  to  abhor 
himself.  He  was  perfectly  sure. 

His  awakening  was  something  of  a  shock  that  night 
as  he  walked  into  the  Major's  room  in  Hollis,  whither 
a  note  from  Hardy  had  directed  him.  A  burst  of 
light  and  a  cloud  of  tobacco  smoke  were  the  first 
things  to  greet  him.  And  then,  out  of  this,  emerged 
the  familiar  figures  of  his  old  friends. 

The  place  was  in  its  usual  state  of  disorder,  though 
its  owner  —  conditioned,  of  course,  —  had  returned  in 
plenty  of  time  to  have  set  it  to  rights.  Books  and 


JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

papers  and  unwashed  dishes  were  so  scattered  about 
that  for  a  moment  Jarvis  feared  treading  upon  some 
of  them.  Stannard,  retained  at  College  by  the  usual 
miracle  that  he  himself  would  have  proved  the  least 
able  to  explain,  was  engaged  at  a  charing  dish,  and 
Hardy  was  trying  to  recline  with  some  semblance  of 
grace  in  one  of  the  impossible,  cramped  old  window- 
seats.  The  Major  was  drawing  a  cork,  and  two  or 
three  other  men  were  occupied  with  similar  matters 
of  a  culinary  nature. 

"  Hello, "  said  the  Major,  coming  forward,  cork- 
screw in  hand,  "  Glad  to  see  you,  old  man.  Come 
in." 

"  And  shut  the  door,"  added  Hardy,  as  the  others 
joined  in  welcome. 

Stannard  left  his  chafing  dish  long  enough  to  shake 
hands. 

"You're  just  in  time,"  he  said.  "Major,  where 's 
another  plate?  You  know  everybody  here,  Dick, 
don't  you?  Here 're  Lippincott  and  Morgan.  Sit 
down  anywhere.  There,  knock  those  books  off  that 
armchair.  And  —  oh,  yes  !  —  I  beg  your  pardon, 
but  what  did  you  say  your  name  was?  " 

He  had  lifted  the  curtain  over  the  entrance  to  the 
next  room  from  whence  came  a  low  answer  of,  — 

"  Anything  you  choose  to  make  it." 

"Worth,"  said  the  Major  laconically,  and  drew  a 
cork. 


"AT   CARDS    FOR   KISSES."  IQI 

"To  be  sure,  Worth.  Now,  you  know  everybody, 
anyhow.  I  '11  have  this  rabbit  ready  in  a  minute,  if 
you  have  n't  spoilt  it.  "  It 's  like  my  chance  for  the 
Institute  —  takes  long  in  getting  through  —  last  ten, 
you  know.  Everybody  tired  blackballing  the  other 
fellows'  friends,  so  people  no  one  ever  heard  of  are  let 
in  just  to  break  the  deadlock." 

Everybody  was  smoking  a  pipe  except  Hardy,  who 
puffed  dubiously  at  an  Egyptian  cigarette,  and  the 
Major,  who  had  compromised  on  a  cigar.  Jarvis, 
however,  refused  all  offers  of  tobacco.  If  the  wrench 
was  to  come,  he  thought  it  might  as  well  come  now. 

"  Why,  what  on  earth 's  the  matter  with  you  ? " 
drawled  Hardy,  and  when  he  had  refused  the  liquor 
too,  "  You  must  have  struck  the  Salvation  Army  in 
Philadelphia." 

"  Or  read  the  General  Booth  interview  in  this  even- 
ing's 'Transcript,'"  suggested  Morgan,  who,  with 
Lippincott,  was  a  fair  representative  of  a  certain  suc- 
cessful class,  and  was,  by  the  way,  born  promising  at 
the  oar. 

"  The  General  has  a  column  of  it  to-day,"  he  went 
on.  "  He  usurps  a  place  before  the  public  about  once 
a  month  now." 

"  There  really  ought  to  be  a  society  formed  for  tak- 
ing the  Bible  out  of  the  hands  of  the  laboring-classes," 
said  the  Major.  "  Here,  mix  me  a  '  Mamie  Taylor,' 
Morgan." 


IQ2  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

"  Is  it  in  danger  of  becoming  so  dreadfully  vulgar?" 
asked  Hardy. 

"What?  —  The  Bible,  or  Morgan's  glass?  "  queried 
Jarvis,  laughing,  and  glad  to  turn  the  conversation 
from  himself. 

"  Both,"  replied  the  Major.  "  The  next  thing  we 
know  they  '11  be  publishing  an  expurgated  edition  for 
the  use  of  the  Young  Person." 

"  An  expurgated  edition  of  Morgan's  glass,"  said 
Lippincott,  "  would  be  a  good  thing  for  young  Mor- 
gan, but  an  expurgated  edition  of  young  Morgan 
would  n't  leave  enough  of  him  to  be  of  much  benefit 
to  anybody." 

"  Don't  be  ephemeral,  Willie.  Some  day  somebody 
will  stick  a  pin  in  you,  or  blow  too  hard  against  that 
bubble  known  as  William  Lippincott  and  there  '11  be 
a  damned  sight  less  left  of  it." 

"Well,  don't  annihilate  each  other  just  yet,"  said 
Stannard,  coming  cautiously  forward  through  the  de- 
bris with  a  couple  of  smoking  plates.  "  If  you  must 
be  resolved  into  your  original  elements,  let  this  do  it. 
It's  a  bit  stringy,  but  pretty  fair,  don't  you  think?" 

"  Corking  !  "  said  one.     "  Bully  !  "  said  another. 

"  Rank,"  declared  the  Major,  promptly  making 
prodigious  headway  into  his  share.  "  Here,  Mr. 
Worth  !  Wake  up  and  come  out ;  the  '  parrage '  is 
ready,  and  it  '11  be  '  cauld '  if  you  stop  for  another 
nightmare." 


"AT  CARDS   FOR  KISSES."  193 

"  This  is  enough  of  a  one,  anyhow,"  added  Morgan. 
"  Well,  he  does  n't  want  it  cold,  at  all  events. 

"  *  Some  like  it  hot,  some  like  it  cold, 
Some  like  it  in  the  pot '  — 

I  really  forget  how  many  days  old." 

The  curtain  was  drawn  back  and  a  tall,  thin  man 
appeared  beneath  it,  shaking  long,  black  locks  of 
hair  from  his  sallow  face,  and  rubbing  a  pair  of  bright, 
dark  eyes. 

"Come  here,  Worth,"  called  the  Major.  "You 
take  things  mighty  easy  for  a  man  who  is  having 
only  one  night's  glimpse  of  Harvard.  This  is  Mr. 
Jarvis,  the  latest  arrival.  You  don't  have  anything 
exactly  corresponding  to  this  in  Germany,  so  wake 
up  and  study  it."  Then  he  added  to  Dick,  with 
the  waive  of  an  exhibitor  toward  the  stranger, 
"  Latest  importation.  Genuine  Heidelberg.  Lippm- 
cott's  guest." 

"  I  disown  him !  "  cried  the  accredited  host. 

Worth,  however,  smiled  and  nodded  rather  com- 
placently, took  his  share  of  toast  and  cheese  and,  to 
prove  the  correctness  of  the  Major's  statements  as  to 
his  university,  drank  whiskey  instead  of  beer. 

"And  you  positively  won't  have  anything,  Dick?" 
asked  Hardy. 

"  No,  thank  you,  I  don't  think  I  shall." 

"  Then  I  have  it.  It 's  not  the  Salvation  Army. 
It 's  worse.  It  *s  a  woman." 

'3 


194  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

"  I  thought  they  had  the  opposite  effect,"  said 
Mallard.  "  They  surely  used  to." 

"  Oh,  but  I  mean  a  serious  case." 

"  Did  you  ever  know  Dick  to  be  facetious?  Has 
she  a  soprano  voice,  Dickie?" 

"  You  're  both  wrong,"  said  Jarvis,  quietly;  "it's 
only  the  football." 

"Oh,  come  off!  Don't  give  us  a  lie  patent  like 
that,"  cried  Hardy. 

"  Fact." 

"  How  do  you  like  the  Harvard  idea  of  honour, 
Mr.  Worth?  "  asked  Morgan. 

Worth  smiled  again. 

"  It  is  one  of  the  things  that  Sterne  could  not  have 
said  were  managed  better  in  France,"  he  replied. 
"  In  Paris  a  reporter  says  of  a  deputy,  *  he  is  a  jug- 
gler with  the  truth.'  There  are  letters,  friends,  scare- 
heads,  a  doctor,  and  a  duel." 

"  Some  times  a  man  even  gets  hurt,"  interrupted 
Hardy. 

"  John  Bull  uses  his  fists,  and  that 's  vulgar," 
continued  Worth,  imperturbably.  "  Tony  stabs  the 
the  offender  in  the  back  — " 

"  And  Hans  marks  his  face,  eh  ?  "  asked  the  Major. 

"  At  Yale,"  said  Lippincott,  "  one  either  calls  his 
friend  names  behind  his  back,  or  does  his  fighting 
over  a  telephone." 

"But  here   at  Harvard,"  Worth  concluded,   "you 


"AT  CARDS   FOR   KISSES."  195 

are  too  far  advanced  for  any  of  those  methods.  A 
simply  says,  '  You  're  a  liar ' ;  B  replies,  '  You  're  an- 
other, '  —  and  there  's  an  end  of  it." 

"  Ah,  Jarvis,"  said  the  Major.  "  This  is  not,  as 
it  seemed,  a  deus  ex  machina,  but  a  diabolus  ex 
infra'' 

"  Anyhow,"  said  Hardy,  "  I  stand  by  my  original 
proposition.  It 's  a  woman  and  it 's  serious." 

Worth's  sneer  had  not  been  without  its  effect  on 
farvis,  and  he  found  himself  a  bit  ruffled  by  the  last 
remark  of  Hardy,  who,  he  had  begun  to  hope,  was 
effectually  silenced. 

"  Really,"  he  submitted,  "  I  don't  see  that  it's  any 
Df  your  business." 

"  There !  "  cried  Hardy,  waving  the  stump  of  his 
cigarette.  "  The  prosecution  rests  !  " 

"  Well,  the  accusation  is  n't  so  very  awful,"  said 
;he  Major. 

"  Why,"  rejoined  Stannard,  "  who  ever  heard  of 
a  Sophomore  marrying  unless  it  was  a  chorus-girl  ?  " 

"  Marrying?  Oh,  I  thought  you  said  it  was  seri- 
ous." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  growled  Jarvis. 

"  Nothing,"  replied  Stannard.  "  Don't  you  know 
the  Major  well  enough  to  be  sure  by  this  time  that 
he  never  by  any  chance  means  anything?" 

"  Thank  you,"  grinned  the  Major,  "  but  our  youth- 
ful Concordian  's  partly  convinced  me.  Dick  is 


196  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

entirely  too   righteously   indignant  to  be  altogether 
innocent." 

He  really  did  mean  nothing.  Not  one  of  the  party 
imagined  that  there  was  any  trespass  upon  Jarvis' 
privacy,  but  the  latter  was  now  thoroughly  out  of 
temper.  He  even  lost  his  awe  for  the  silently  patron- 
ising German  student. 

"  You  're  awfully  funny  for  a  while,  Major,"  he 
commented,  "  but  your  jokes  lack  originality  some 
times." 

"  And  so  does  your  criticism,  as  somebody  else  of 
equal  brilliance  said  somewhere  or  other.  Stan- 
nard  's  always  telling  me  the  same  thing." 

"  Then  there 's  indeed  no  grace  in  oft-repeated 
prayers." 

"  Oh,  break  it  off,  both  of  you !  "  cried  Morgan. 
"It's  not  very  entertaining  to  the  rest  of  us." 

"  And  the  first  thing  you  know  you  '11  be  disproving 
all  Mr.  Worth's  theories  about  our  mode  of  settling 
our  difficulties,"  chimed  in  Lippincott.  "  Let 's  play 
cards." 

"  Were  there  ever  seven  men  together  at  this  time 
of  night  without  one  of  them  —  and  only  one —  want- 
ting  to  play  cards?  "  cried  Stannard. 

"  And  another  wanting  to  go  home,"  added  Hardy. 
"Why  don't  you  finish  your  quotations?  That's 
where  I  want  to  go." 

"  No,   you   don't.     You  '11   stay   right    here.     I  'm 


"AT  CARDS  FOR  KISSES."  197 

your  room-mate  this  year.     I  '11  rout  you  out  when  I 
get  home  anyhow  if  you  don't." 

"  Perhaps  Mr.  Worth  does  n't  play  poker,"  sug- 
gested Morgan.  "  And  it  is  a  queer  way  of  quieting 
rancorous  tongues." 

"  Of  course  he  does,"  said  the  Major,  all  at  his  ease 
despite  Jarvis  '  ill-concealed  bad-humour.  "  Who  ever 
heard  of  a  foreigner,  and  especially  a  Dutchman,  not 
playing  the  American  game?  If  you  had  said  gaigel 
now." 

"Oh,  it'll  be  Dick,  'the  Methody,'  that  doesn't 
play,"  said  Hardy. 

"  I  thought  you  were  going  home,"  said  Jarvis. 
"  Did  Mr.  Runover  never  catch  you  playing  in  the 
Lower  School?" 

"  I  '11  try  to  play,"  said  Worth. 

"  So  '11  I !  "  cried  Dick,  and  seizing  Stannard's 
newly  filled  stein,  he  drained  it  to  the  bottom.  But 
he  did  not  hear  the  jeering  applause  that  greeted  his 
last  action.  After  all,  one  last  night  of  it  was  n't 
going  to  do  any  hurt. 

He  had  been  utterly  out  of  tune.  The  whole 
scene  was  discordant  to  him.  He  had  been  a  fool  to 
come  here  in  his  present  frame  of  mind.  Then 
Stannard's  sneers  at  marriage  for  a  fellow  of  his  age 
had  hurt  the  pride  which  Jarvis'  years  dignify  by  the 
name  of  self-esteem,  and  he  had  been  foolish  enough 
to  show  it  and  angry  at  himself  and  at  all  about  him 


198  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

because  he  had  done  so.  Whoever  heard  of  a  Soph- 
omore marrying?  The  little  cad!  The  merest  con- 
nection, however  remote,  of  Peggy's  personality  with 
such  a  scene  enraged  him.  He  would  show  these 
puppies  how  to  win  the  battle  of  life,  when  they  were 
going  with  the  wounded  to  the  rear.  Then  he  saw 
that  he  could  n't,  of  course,  marry  until  he  was  out 
of  College.  The  idea  was  not  new  to  him  since  the 
evening  before,  but  the  environment,  the  setting, 
hardly  tended  toward  hopefulness.  He  felt  that  he 
had  been  slow  to  realise  what  three  years  meant. 
Never  mind.  He  was  strong  in  his  love  and  he  must 
conquer.  If  he  did  not  have  the  joy  of  the  prize  he 
would  have  the  happiness  of  dying  in  the  fight  for  it. 
But  still,  if  in  the  mean  time — .  He  was  very  far 
away  and  — 

He  took  the  drink.  There  would  be  no  mean  time 
then.  Anyhow,  he  needed  the  night  to  sleep  on  it 
and  one  more  hour  of  this  kind  of  thing  would  not 
hurt  him,  —  would,  in  fact,  serve  to  let  him  down 
easily. 

Stannard  cleared  the  table  and  piled  the  dishes  on 
the  hearth.  The  chairs  were  dragged  up  and  the 
men  threw  themselves  into  them. 

"  Come  on,  Hardy,"  said  the  Major. 

"  I  told  you  I  was  going  home,"  said  the  reluctant 
one.  "  The  only  compromise  I  '11  make  is  to  stay  to 
look  on." 


"AT  CARDS   FOR  KISSES."  199 

"  Believing  that  poker  is  a  good  game  to  win  at  and 
euchre  a  good  one  at  which  to  lose?  "  asked  Morgan. 

"  As  still  somebody  else  said,"  Lippincott  hurriedly 
interposed.  "  Won't  you  really  play,  Hardy?  " 

"  No,  I  hardly  ever  do,  thank  you." 

"Oh,  come  on!"  expostulated  Stannard.  "You 
were  just  now  kicking  at  Dick.  What  are  you  afraid 
of  ?  It 's  an  easy  game.  Ten  calls  twenty,  three  of 
a  kind  a  jack-pot,  no  robber  decks  and  your  scarf-pin 
for  the  limit." 

"  My  dear  boy,"  cried  the  Major.  "  Don't  be  un- 
sociable." 

Jarvis  was  silent. 

"  I  'm  not  unsociable,"  protested  Hardy,  "  and  of 
course  you  know,  Stannard,  that  it 's  not  because  I  'm 
afraid  of  losing  anything.  I  just  don't  want  to  play 
to-night,  that 's  all.  I  prefer  to  look  on." 

"  Oh,  come  on  !  " 

"  I  don't  want  to." 

"  Let  him  alone,"  said  Morgan.  "If  he  won't,  he 
won't.  That 's  his  stubborn  kind." 

Jarvis  reflected  that  he  admired  that  stubborn  kind 
and  he  became  still  more  angry  because  of  the  obvi- 
ous conclusion.  However,  he  thought,  he  was  in  for 
it  now. 

The  room  was  by  this  time  so  filled  with  smoke 
that  the  higher  placed  gas-jets  had  become  of  little 
use  and  had  therefore  been  extinguished.  The  gay 


2OO  JARVIS   OF    HARVARD. 

draperies  and  light  pictures  of  the  place  were  com- 
pletely lost  to  view  and  only  the  board  and  the  faces 
of  the  players  around  it  were  to  be  seen.  Indeed, 
their  heads  seemed  to  float  in  the  air  quite  independ- 
ent of  their  bodies  and  shifted  about  the  margin  of 
the  disk  of  light  like  evil  cherubim. 

Morgan  was  half  stupefied  and  trying  hard  to  con- 
centrate himself  on  the  game ;  Lippincott  was  giving 
more  attention  to  concealing  the  condition  of  his 
fellow-classman  than  to  his  cards;  the  Major  was 
keeping  up  a  continual  fire  of  epigrams  upon  the  uni- 
verse in  general,  and  Stannard  was  succeeding  in 
showing  his  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  game 
only  by  the  equanimity  with  which  he  met  his  con- 
stant losses.  Hardy  hovered  around  the  outside  of 
the  circle  for  a  while,  like  an  over-cautious  moth  about 
the  proverbial  candle,  but  he  soon  found  that  the 
best  game  to  play  is  the  poorest  to  look  at,  and  re- 
tired to  the  narrow  old  window-seat.  Worth  sat 
silent,  opposite  Jarvis  with  only  a  small  purchase  of 
chips  before  him.  Every  one  was  smoking  and  most, 
by  the  side  of  their  chairs,  had  bottles  from  which 
they  drank  direct.  The  German  was  the  only  ex- 
ception. He  said  he  never  drank  when  he  played. 

"  That 's  a  bad  sign,"  said  the  Major.  "  I  '11  have 
to  put  more  tea  in  my  pipe.  I  always  smoke  tea 
when  I  do  mathematics,  or  poker  does  me.  It  clears 
my  head." 


"AT  CARDS  FOR  KISSES."  2OI 

Jarvis  went  into  the  first  hand  with  three  kings  and 
won.  As  he  swept  in  the  bits  of  ivory  a  sudden 
superstition  took  possession  of  him.  Lippincott  had 
been  just  behind  him  with  three  queens,  and  none  of 
the  other  three  who  came  in  held  better  than  a  pair 
of  aces.  Luck  was  surely  with  any  one  who  could 
win  like  that.  With  its  usual  logic  the  fantastic  side 
of  his  nature  declared  that  if  he  won  in  this  game  — 
despite  what  the  proverb  says  about  the  lucky  at 
cards  —  he  would  be  victorious  in  that  greater  one 
upon  which  he  had  so  set  his  heart. 

The  idea  of  an  omen,  always  fascinating  to  him, 
gained  in  this  case  a  complete  control  of  his  play. 
He  grew  hot  and  excited;  discarded  wildly  and 
smiled  in  exultation  or  could  have  wept  with  cha- 
grin as  he  won  or  lost.  When  the  play  hung  in  the 
balance,  his  heart  seemed  to  stop  beating,  and  he 
could  hardly  breathe.  By  a  strange  complex  action 
he  threw  into  those  bits  of  pasteboard  all  the  hope 
and  fear,  the  energy  and  labour,  that  he  had  ready  for 
the  fight  which  his  distorted  imagination  had  made 
this  game  to  represent. 

For  a  while  the  luck  rose  and  fell  variably.  The 
cards  demonstrated  no  disposition  toward  any  parti- 
cular "  run."  One  time  they  would  be  high,  the  next 
low,  and  every  one  about  the  table  had  his  turn  at 
the  winnings.  Gradually,  however,  Jarvis  and  Worth 
began  to  forge  steadily  ahead.  Morgan  lost  a  pot  to 


202  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

the  latter  on  a  low  straight,  and  bought  more  chips. 
The  other  men's  little  ivory  pillars  had  lowered  to  the 
relative  size  of  grave-stones,  and  the  winners'  began  to 
rise  proportionally.  Then  the  losers  stayed  out  while 
Jarvis  raised  his  opponent  on  three  queens.  Worth 
held  three  aces. 

"  You  must  have  been  learning  at  Holyoke,"  said 
Mallard,  as  he  dealt  for  the  next  hand. 

"  How's  that?"  asked  Worth. 

"  That  crowd  over  there  play  from  eight  at  night 
till  eight  in  the  morning  regularly." 

The  game  went  steadily  on.  The  other  men  were 
far  behind.  Neither  Worth  nor  Jarvis  had  drawn  on 
the  bank  more  than  once.  Lippincott  looked  at  his 
watch  while  Dick  thumped  a  devil's  tattoo  on  the 
board  before  him. 

"  What 's  the  time  ?  "  asked  somebody. 

"  Six  o'clock.  We  '11  have  two  rounds  of  Jack  pots 
and  then  quit.  Does  that  suit?  " 

Nobody  objected  except  Morgan,  and  he  was 
quickly  silenced  by  Lippincott. 

The  cards  were  "  running  "  at  last.  Nobody  seemed 
to  hold  anything  except  Worth  and  Jarvis.  Dick  was 
nearly  mad  with  excitement.  There  were  only  two 
pots  left  and  Worth  was  far  "  to  the  good."  Morgan 
stayed  in  with  the  winners  for  five  dollars  and  laid 
down  two  pairs.  Jarvis  displayed  an  ace  high 
straight.  Worth  deliberately  laid  down  a  flush. 


"AT   CARDS    FOR    KISSES."  2O3 

Jarvis  could  no  longer  hide  his  excitement.  He 
had  turned  from  hot  to  cold.  A  clammy  sweat  actu- 
ally broke  out  upon  him.  His  fingers  were  so  numb 
that  he  could  not  handle  his  cards  but  dropped  them 
continually.  His  eyes  blazed  like  a  man's  in  the 
delirium  tremens.  The  other  men  chaffed  him  inces- 
santly, but  he  did  not  appear  to  hear  it,  only  laughing 
in  a  high-pitched  voice  that  rang  false  and  cracked. 

Worth  maintained  a  calm,  uninterested  expression 
that  maddened  his  scarcely  less  lucky  adversary.  He 
kept  his  chips  piled  in  regular,  neat  little  columns  in 
front  of  him,  while  Jarvis'  lay  in  a  disordered  heap 
and  were  continually  rolling  unheeded  to  the  floor. 

The  deal  went  round  four  times.  Then  Stannard 
"  opened."  Lippincott  and  the  Major  dropped  out 
in  turn.  Dick  was  ready  to  scream  with  fear  lest 
Worth  should  follow  their  example.  Instead  the 
German  drew  one  card.  That  was  almost  as  bad. 
Morgan  took  three  and  Mallard  gave  himself  the 
same  number.  Jarvis  held  a  pair  of  deuces.  He 
threw  the  five  cards  on  the  floor  and  asked  hoarsely 
and  in  a  voice  that  trembled  pitiably,  for  a  fresh 
hand.  He  got  four  sixes.  No  sound  was  to  be 
heard  save  the  clicking  of  the  chips. 

Stannard  bet  a  dollar.  The  words  were  not  out  of 
his  mouth  when  Dick  raised  to  the  limit.  Worth  was 
the  only  one  to  stay  in  and  he  raised  to  the  limit 
again. 


204  JAR  VIS   OF  HARVARD. 

"  I  won't  see  you,"  said  Dick.  "Let's  put  in  the 
whole  pile  and  finish  it  up." 

The  onlookers  laughed. 

"  You  're  too  anxious,"  said  Stannard. 

"  Damn  you  —  shut  up  !  "  cried  Dick. 

Worth  calmly  and  slowly  moved  his  little  columns 
to  the  centre  of  the  table.  He  seemed  to  take  great 
care  lest  he  should  spill  one.  Dick  pushed  his  store 
into  them  with  a  force  that  sent  them  spinning  all 
about  the  room. 

u  Four  sixes  !  "  he  fairly  yelled. 

"  That 's  good,"  said  Worth,  quietly,  and  laid  down 
his  cards. 

Jarvis  had  risen  from  his  seat  and  was  leaning 
excitedly  over  the  board.  When  he  knew  that  he 
had  won,  he  sank  back  into  his  chair  with  a  gasp  of 
relief. 

The  unlucky  players  laughed. 

"  I  never  saw  you  so  wild  for  a  few  dollars,  Dick," 
said  Mallard.  "That  country  trip  must  have  cost 
you  a  pile." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  care  for  the  stuff,"  said  Jarvis.  "  I 
was  only  interested  for  the  game's  sake.  We  '11  have 
a  little  supper  at  the  Barker  House  to-morrow 
evening." 

He  had  won  !  He  had  won  !  He  had  won  !  No 
other  thought  could  find  a  place  in  the  happy  tumult 
of  his  mind.  The  foul  air  of  the  room,  the  close 


"AT  CARDS  FOR   KISSES.'*  205 

atmosphere,  reeking  with  stale  tobacco,  heated  men, 
cheese,  and  the  remains  of  liquor,  and  thickened  by  the 
excited  breath  of  the  players,  was  to  him  the  most 
intoxicating  oxygen.  He  did  not  hear  them  wake  the 
protesting  Hardy,  who  stood  stretching  his  cramped 
limbs.  The  victory  was  promised,  the  end  secure. 
When  the  Major  proposed  an  "  eye-opener,"  he  rilled 
his  glass  to  the  brim  and  his  hand  so  shook  with 
nervous  joy  that  the  red-brown  liquor  spilled  down 
his  fancy  waistcoat. 

Some  one  had  pushed  up  the  blinds  and  the  light  of 
the  early  autumn  dawn  was  creeping  through  the 
smoke  and  playing  strange  tricks  with  the  lamp-light 
on  the  pale  faces  of  the  standing  boys.  But  Jarvis 
was  sitting  alone,  laughing  to  himself. 

"  Here  's  to  hell  with  —  '  began  the  inarticulate 
Morgan,  grabbing  the  table  to  prevent  his  swaying  to 
and  fro. 

"  No,"  interrupted  Hardy,  laughing,  "  here  's  to  the 
Sophomore's  wedding !  " 

"  Gentlemen,"  said  Worth,  calmly,  "  let  me,  —  as  I 
leave  to-day  and  shall  be  unable  to  accept  Mr.  Jarvis' 
invitation  —  let  me  propose  the  toast." 

He  was  standing  across  from  Jarvis  half  hidden  in 
the  peculiar  light,  his  white  face  and  diamond  eyes 
gleaming  strangely,  almost  weirdly.  Dick  rose  and 
held  his  glass  ready. 

"  Mr.  Worth  has  n't  spoken  two  words  to-night," 


206  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

he  said.  "  It 's  surely  his  turn."  He,  too,  was  white, 
but  radiantly  joyful  and  smiling  a  happy,  foolish 
smile. 

Worth's  voice  was  low,  even,  and  musical. 

"  Gentlemen,"  he  began.  "  I  am  bidding  farewell 
to  Harvard.  I  have  enjoyed  much  my  stay  here  and 
I  thank  you  for  contributing  to  my  pleasure.  It  is 
morning.  The  sun  is  rising  and  the  world  awakening 
to  a  fresh  lease  of  conscious  existence.  This,  then, 
is  my  appropriate  toast:  To  all  of  you  who  have 
been  so  kind  to  me,  Life.  May  it  be  bright  as 
woman's  eyes  and  '  brief,  —  as  woman's  love.'  " 

Jarvis'  glass  fell  crashing  to  the  floor. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

A  BROKEN  REED. 

DISTRAUGHT  with  the  excitement  of  play  and  con- 
fused by  the  clash  of  omens,  Jarvis  went  to  bed  that 
morning  to  awake  long  after  noon  with  a  mind  strangely 
at  rest.  We  believe,  all  of  us,  very  much  what  we 
want  to  believe,  and  Dick,  forcing  his  reason  to  scout 
the  idea  of  anything  occult  in  Worth's  mal-apropos 
toast,  allowed  his  fancy  to  set  the  first  value  on  the 
superstition  he  had  held  regarding  the  outcome  of 
the  game.  His  last  taste  of  dissipation  was  over ;  he 
had  not  found  it  sweet,  and  he  was  quite  ready  to 
begin  the  work  that  he  had  laid  down  for  himself. 

It  was,  therefore,  with  a  perhaps  mistaken,  but  none 
the  less  sincere,  energy  that  he  set  upon  carrying 
out  his  plans.  Unconsciously  the  strongest  college 
student  must  become  the  creature  of  the  academic 
atmosphere.  He  is  utterly  cut  off  from  the  outside 
world  and  college  successes  or  disasters  are  soon  the 
symbols  for  actual  victory  and  defeat,  and  then  the 
only  real  victories  or  defeats  that  there  are. 

Finding  that,  with  some  serious  work,  he  would  be 
more  than  able  to  master  his  studies,  he  began  to 


208  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

look  forward  to  the  football.     Here  his  way  was  for . 
the  first  few  days  easy  enough.     The  promising  work 
of  his  short  experience  the  year  before  had,  in  the 
lapse  of  time,  completely  overshadowed  his  sudden 
desertion,  and  he  was  a  welcome  candidate. 

Harvard,  however,  was  late  in  beginning  this  work. 
As  early  as  the  third  of  September  Yale's  squad  had 
been  announced.  On  the  fifth,  nine  of  Pennsylvania's 
players  had  reported  for  practice ;  by  the  seventh  all 
that  team  were  on  hand,  and  a  few  days  later  its 
candidates  had  begun  training.  The  graduate  coaches 
were  pouring  into  New  Haven,  but  not  until  the 
seventh  was  anything  done  at  Cambridge. 

On  that  day  Jarvis  was  one  of  the  band  of  forty 
players  who,  led  by  Haley,  the  little  captain,  came  out 
from  the  Locker  Building  on  Soldiers'  Field.  There 
was  a  regiment  of  enthusiasts  on  hand  to  cheer  them 
and  this  added  not  a  little  to  the  spirit  of  the  initial 
practice. 

For  twenty-five  minutes  the  whole  company  of 
candidates  was  hurried  through  the  preliminary 
manoeuvres.  Starts  and  falling  on  a  ball  tossed  among 
or  toward  them  were  practised  either  alone  or  in 
pairs,  and  failures  were  denounced  by  the  coaches  in 
no  easy  terms.  Catching  and  punting  were  tried  for 
twenty  minutes  more,  and  then  the  practice  was 
brought  to  an  end  with  a  run  around  the  field  and  a 
spurt  to  the  Lockers. 


A    BROKEN   REED.  2OQ 

Six  men  of  the  last  year's  team  were  there  —  two 
ends,  two  half-backs,  the  quarter,  and  the  full-back. 
But  a  good  deal  of  dismay  was  produced  when  Tom 
McCuen,  the  Scotch  trainer,  in  sweater  and  cap, 
authoritatively  announced  that  "  Billie  "  Dire,  the  full- 
back of  the  '99  team,  would  not  play  that  season. 
There  were  rumours,  too,  to  the  effect  that  Beetnurt, 
the  centre,  was  unable  to  arrange  a  little  difficulty 
with  the  Office,  and  that  Stendhal,  the  rushing  half, 
would  not  return  to  College. 

Serious,  however,  as  was  this  apparent  drain  on  the 
the  back-field,  the  days  that  immediately  followed 
developed  a  fair  amount  of  new  material,  so  that  it 
soon  became  evident  that  the  chief  weakness  would, 
after  all,  be  on  the  line  between  the  ends.  However, 
Kohl,  the  former  guard,  might  still  "  come  out "  and 
Lorenz,  the  old  tackle,  would  surely  play. 

Jarvis  was  set  down  as  a  candidate  for  right  end 
and  thus  had  at  first  little  chance  for  a  place,  since 
that  position  was  considered  secure  in  the  hands  of 
the  man  who  had  held  it  during  the  previous  season. 
Yet  he  liked  the  work  and  found  it,  for  the  time, 
comparatively  pleasant.  He  enjoyed  being  set  to 
dive  at  the  swinging  " dummy"  —  which,  as  less 
dangerous,  has  now  almost  entirely  replaced  the  old 
tackling  "  a  live  man"  —  and  in  all  the  rest  of  the 
elementary  "  limbering  up  "  he  found  only  the  best 
of  exercise.  Indeed,  he  "  limbered  up  "  to  such  an 

14 


2IO  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

extent  that  he  soon  reduced  his  weight  to  a  hundred 
and  sixty  pounds. 

In  a  few  days  a  graduate  who  had  been  famous  in 
Jarvis'  place  in  years  gone  by,  was  put  in  direct  con- 
trol of  Dick's  preparation.  That  afternoon  he  was 
given  especial  attention  while  the  other  five  men  who 
were  "  trying  for  the  position  "  were  "  bunched " 
under  another  coach.  Then  the  squads  were  again 
formed  and  a  couple  of  hours  were  spent  in  forming 
into  impromptu  interference  while  one  odd  man  was 
detailed  to  "  break  this  up." 

Dick  plunged  into  the  advancing  crowd  with  con- 
siderable zeal  and  when  he  failed  did  so  only  through 
a  lack  of  experience.  But  coaches  have  a  common 
faith  in  the  benefits  of  abuse  and  he  was  well  berated 
for  his  shortcomings. 

"  We  '11  probably  have  our  first  line-up  to-morrow," 
his  instructor  concluded,  "  and  unless  you  brace  by 
that  time  you  might  as  well  stay  in  your  room." 

The  remark  was  not  of  the  sort  that  inspire  confi- 
dence, but  Jarvis  was  not  the  person  easily  to  be 
shaken  in  his  desperate  determination.  He  had  got 
at  least  some  recognition,  and  he  had  mastered  the 
fact  that  it  is  better  to  be  sworn  at  than  not  to  be 
noticed  at  all. 

They  did  not  "  line-up  "  next  day,  but  there  were 
more  attacks  upon  interference,  and  Jarvis  went  into 
the  scrimmage  with  a  mind  made  up  to  do  his  best. 


A  BROKEN  REED.  2H 

Once  upon  the  field  he  tried  as  hard  for  what  he  now 
knew  must  be  a  second  place  as  he  would,  in  other 
circumstances,  have  tried  for  a  first.  He  put  away  a 
deeply  rooted  distaste  for  what  he  had  chosen  to  con- 
sider was  forcing  himself  where  he  was  not  wanted ; 
he  felt  that  he  could  be  useful  to  others,  and  he  had, 
individually,  too  much  to  lose  to  be  deterred  by  any- 
thing less  substantial  than  a  broken  leg. 

The  College  was  being  scoured  for  men,  and 
personal  appeals  had  succeeded  the  former  printed 
requests.  The  result  was  an  outpouring  of  fellows, 
many  of  whom  Jarvis  had  never  seen  before,  and 
whose  very  names  were  continually  forgotten  by  the 
men  who  directed  them. 

Every  day,  until  recitations  had  well  commenced, 
there  was  a  light  morning  practice  with  dumb-bells, 
from  ten-thirty  to  eleven-fifty,  ending  with  a  run  of 
almost  two  miles,  up  and  back  along  the  park  system 
on  Charles  River.  Then  in  the  afternoon  came  the 
regular  work :  Five  minutes  at  ten  yard  starts ;  prac- 
tice at  passing  and  falling  on  the  ball,  kicking,  "  line- 
ups for  snap-backs,"  general  "breaking  through" 
and  tackling  again  the  heavy  "  dummy"  that,  swung 
from  a  beam,  wriggled  and  rushed  with  terrible  force. 
Altogether,  they  were  never  more  than  two  hours  at 
this  exercise,  but  while  it  lasted  it  was  sufficiently 
violent. 

At  last  the  famous  coaches  of  other  years  began  to 


212  JARVIS  OF  HARVARD. 

appear:  Dabille,  Dr.  Ruisseaux,  Carters,  Edmunds, 
Willis  the  centre,  and  Campbell  Ford.  Then  there 
were  regular  "  line-ups  "  of  the  third  and  first  and 
second  and  fourth  rate  men  —  five  minute  games,  in 
which  Dick,  playing  with  all  his  heart  and  soul,  shone 
even  better  than  he  knew. 

Yet  he  now  felt  that  even  for  a  secondary  place  he 
would  have  had  no  chance  in  the  world  had  it  not 
been  for  his  unusually  fine  physique,  his  absolute 
devotion  to  the  study  of  detail  and  tactics,  and  the 
blind  disregard  for  personal  safety  that  forced  him 
upon  the  notice  of  the  athletic  Olympians.  These 
things  did  for  him  what  steady  practice  and  familiar 
acquaintance  with  the  game  failed  to  do  for  the  ordi- 
nary man.  Every  afternoon  would  see  him  going 
through  the  regulation  drilling  among  a  hundred 
other  indistinguishables  in  dirty  moleskins  and  crim- 
son jerseys.  At  first  even  the  opening  run  about 
the  field  —  not  to  speak  of  the  morning  trot — gave 
him  an  ugly  stitch  in  the  side  and  his  stomach  was 
continually  crying  out  for  many  of  the  things  that  he 
knew  he  ought  to  deny  it.  It  was  no  longer  a  light 
task  to  refuse.  The  whole  man  was  already  in  revolt, 
but,  weak  as  the  flesh  was,  the  spirit  remained  un- 
broken, and  he  masterfully  persevered.  Most  of  the 
men  on  the  squad  were  far  advanced  in  experience 
and  practical  knowledge.  Nearly  all  wore  on  their 
dirty  sweaters  something  to  indicate  an  honourable 


A  BROKEN   REED.  213 

apprenticeship  on  school  or  class  eleven,  but  Dick  was 
given  an  even  chance  with  the  best  and  asked  nothing 
more. 

For  some  time  the  work  was  carried  on  with  but 
little  change,  regardless  of  wind  or  weather.  There 
were  days  when  the  breeze  roared  across  the  big  field 
and  the  skeleton-like  rows  of  empty  seats,  so  that  the 
candidates  who  were  waiting  their  turn  along  the  side- 
lines shivered  in  their  blankets,  and  those  engaged  in 
the  actual  practice  were  either  in  a  bath  of  sweat  or, 
at  the  next  moment,  chilled  to  the  very  bone.  The 
new  gridiron  was  so  well  turfed  and  drained  as  to  be 
considered  the  finest  in  the  country,  but  the  best  field 
would  have  to  suffer  at  times  and  there  were  after- 
noons when  a  cold,  cutting  rain  would  be  pelting  in 
the  faces  of  the  players  and  covering  the  grounds 
with  mud.  The  carefully  muffled  line  of  languid  on- 
lookers would  have  utterly  melted  away  and  only  the 
stolid,  inexorable  forms  of  the  coaches,  swathed  in 
mackintoshes  and  greatcoats,  with  here  and  there  an 
umbrella,  or  dressed  themselves  as  for  the  game, 
remained  to  bind  these  splashed,  short-breathing, 
dishevelled  savages  to  the  world  of  liberal  culture 
from  which  they  had  so  recently  emerged.  When  he 
looked  back  upon  it,  the  whole  thing  was  to  Jarvis  a 
wild  chaos  of  continual  action.  With  all  the  waiting 
at  the  side,  there  yet  seemed  to  be  no  standing  still. 
Everything  was  so  quick  that  there  was  little  time,  in 


214  JAR  VIS   OF   HARVARD. 

the  inexperienced  mind,  for  thought.  Long  as  the 
afternoon  appeared,  each  man  was  kept  pretty  con- 
stantly employed.  There  was  no  considerable  cessa- 
tion of  labour  from  the  time  the  players  jumped  into 
their  ill-smelling  clothes  and  half-laced  jackets  until 
the  final  exhilarating  shower-bath  and  alcohol  "  rub- 
down  "  closed  the  day's  work  and  made  it  all  seem 
well  worth  while. 

Dick  was  continually  moved  from  one  little  group 
to  another,  now  flinging  himself  upon  the  ground  to 
secure  the  bit  of  pigskin,  now  diving  head  first  into 
the  heels  of  a  fleeing  player,  or  springing  with  an 
equal  force  to  clutch  him  as  he  advanced ;  plunging 
at  the  heavy  "  dummy  "  outside  the  fence,  kicking  in 
all  manner  of  attitudes  and  circumstances ;  catching 
the  ball  as  it  was  punted  to  him  or  running  with  it  as 
it  was  "  passed,"  to  be  called  back  before  he  had  gone 
ten  yards;  or,  lastly,  tossing  madly  about  in  the 
seething  whirlpool  of  men  in  the  mimic  games  in  the 
centre  of  the  field. 

That  was  the  hardest  work.  It  was  there  that  ac- 
tual playing  counted  for  most  and  safe  comparison 
could  be  made.  Resolved  to  show  well,  Dick  was 
apt  to  spring,  no  matter  how  slight  the  excuse,  into 
every  melee.  The  ball  would  slip  from  stiffened 
fingers  or  wet  hands;  he  would  fall  heavily  to  the 
frozen  ground  or  bury  his  head  in  the  ooze.  His 
nails  were  torn,  his  shins  bruised,  his  eyes  blackened 


A  BROKEN   REED.  215 

and  his  nose  bleeding  most  of  the  time.  At  first  he 
had  been  continually  sore  from  head  to  foot.  But  he 
made  the  men  of  the  'Varsity  angry  and  that  was  a 
good  sign.  And  if  he  was  well  sworn  at  by  the 
coaches,  this  only  made  their  meagre  praise  the 
better  worth  the  winning. 

All  this  while  his  ethical  position  was  undergoing 
a  subtle  change.  The  body  was  again  conquering 
the  mind.  Many  men  who  go  in  for  the  experience 
of  football  have  no  mind  to  be  overcome,  but  such  as 
have  are  very  likely  to  suffer  temporary  subjugation, 
so  that  Jarvis  was  by  no  means  an  anomaly.  Beyond 
getting  through  his  "  Conferences,"  he  had  done  little 
more  than  enough  at  his  studies  since  he  fell  into  the 
rull  current  of  the  game.  As  the  body  had  won  when 
<t  first  cried  for  dissipation,  so  now  it  was  victorious 
when  it  demanded  pampering  of  an  athletic  de- 
scription. Flushed  with  health  and  strength,  strong 
and  renewed,  that  which,  in  his  original  plans,  had 
been  a  mere  means  to  an  end,  came,  unobserved,  to 
usurp  almost  the  place  of  that  end  itself.  The  intel- 
lectual side  of  his  life  was,  at  least,  relegated  to  the 
dim  futurity.  Once  on  a  victorious  'Varsity  eleven, 
there  could  be  for  him,  in  Peggy's  eyes,  no  higher 
honour  left  to  win.  Throbbing  with  a  new  happiness 
—  that  of  muscular  strength,  —  he  felt  that  all  other 
power  was  only  that  of  a  quahaug.  He  was  carried 
away  by  the  purely  physical.  But  the  sin  was  venial. 


2l6  JARVIS  OF  HARVARD. 

Every  muscle,  awakened  from  a  long  sleep,  brought 
suddenly  from  a  dreary  quietude  of  inactivity,  cried 
out  to  be  used,  to  be  developed,  to  be  battled  with, 
strained,  tugged  at,  beaten,  and  to  conquer  in  the  end. 
He  listened. 

The  old  players  who  intended  to  try  again  this 
season  had  now  all  appeared  on  the  field,  and  though 
Kohl,  who  had  developed  an  injury  from  the  year 
before,  and  a  few  other  valuable  men,  were  now  de- 
finitely counted  out  of  it,  there  was  still  material  and 
to  spare.  Four  regular  teams  had  been  chosen  and 
Jarvis  had  alternated  between  the  second  and  the  third. 
Finally  the  day  before  the  first  game  arrived  and  after 
a  thorough  drill,  offensive  and  defensive,  he  was  told 
that  he  might  possibly  be  tried  against  Wesleyan. 

He  did  get  into  the  game  in  the  second  half  when 
Harvard  played  a  practically  fresh  eleven.  He  fought 
as  if  his  whole  life's  fate  hung  on  the  manner  in  which 
he  acquitted  himself.  Although  he  had  found  the 
puzzle  a  thousand  times  more  difficult,  he  had  studied 
the  intricate  signals  with  more  energy  and  enthusiasm 
than  he  had  ever  put  into  his  Greek  or  even  his 
English.  He  had  taken  in  and  committed  to  memory 
every  hint  that  made  for  the  better  fulfilment  of  his 
duties.  He  was  perhaps  the  only  successful  football 
player  who  read  instead  of  wrote  articles  or  books 
about  the  game.  The  result  was  that  day  pronounced 
promising  in  a  game  otherwise  none  too  encouraging. 


A   BROKEN   REED.  21 7 

While  the  rest  of  the  team  played  raggedly  and  showed 
a  lack  of  uniform  work  both  in  interference  and  on 
the  line,  he  followed  the  ball  closely,  broke  up  the 
opposing  interference  every  time  it  was  launched 
against  him,  and  made  one  sure  though  somewhat 
theatrical  tackle  of  Wesleyan's  plucky  captain,  Dobbs. 
But  he  lost  his  head  as  soon  as  he  got  a  hard  knock, 
and  was  rather  inclined  to  play  a  game  that  was  both 
"  wild  "  and,  in  the  technical  sense,  vicious. 

The  final  score  had  been  twenty-four  to  nothing  as 
against  only  twenty  in  '99,  but  the  coaches  were,  as 
usual,  dissatisfied  and  began  to  use  drastic  methods. 
Already  above  a  score  of  candidates  had  been  dropped 
and  now  the  remainder  were  definitely  divided  under 
four  general  heads :  members  of  the  last  year's  'Var- 
sity team  and  substitutes ;  players  who  had  previously 
been  on  'Varsity  squads  together  with  members  of  the 
former  Freshman  team,  who  had  experience  in  similar 
training,  and  lastly  the  raw  candidates,  mostly  College 
newcomers.  That  Thursday  Jarvis  was  placed  in  the 
third  eleven  which  lined  up  against  the  first  for  a  fif- 
teen minute  half.  After  a  few  gains,  he  was  called 
back  of  the  line,  given  the  ball  on  a  double  pass, 
hurdled  his  crouching  opponents  and  was  pushed 
over  for  a  touchdown. 

That  was  the  first  disaster  to  the  'Varsity.  Next 
day  Stendhal,  who  had  returned  to  his  old  place  at 
half,  had  received  an  injury  known  to  players  as 


2l8  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

"  caved-in  "  chest,  and  Howell,  the  right  end,  getting 
a  bad  twist  of  the  ankle,  Jarvis  was  tried  in  his  place 
against  Williams. 

Here  again  his  fairly  good  work  distinguished  him 
above  the  veterans  who  had  not  yet  "  caught  their 
pace."  For  against  Bowdoin,  on  the  fifth  of  Octo- 
ber, they  could  make  only  two  touchdowns  and  were 
weak  in  the  line.  They  were  unable  to  budge  Lay, 
Boudell,  and  Phillips,  the  sturdy  Maine  centre  trio, 
but  they  played  with  a  new  "  snap  "  and  perseverance 
that  kept  their  goal  out  of  danger  from  start  to  finish. 

That  day,  as  he  was  going  up  from  the  field  after 
the  hard-fought  contest,  he  met  Stannard  for  the  first 
time  since  the  poker  bout  in  Hollis.  The  Boston  boy 
had  appeared  to  avoid  him  and  he  was  in  no  hurry  to 
force  his  presence.  When,  however,  they  found 
themselves  walking  side  by  side,  neither  was  quite 
childish  enough  to  keep  up  the  fancied  estrangement. 

"  I  hear  big  things  of  you,  Dick,"  said  Stannard. 
"  They  tell  me  you  're  the  coming  end  for  next  year 
—  if  you  don't  even  make  it  this." 

"  Oh,  that 's  only  some  of  Morgan's  gab,"  replied 
the  other,  with  a  transparent  attempt  at  modesty.  "  I 
like  the  thing  and  get  along  tolerably  well,  because  I 
do  like  it." 

"  But  I  heard  a  better  authority  than  Morgan  say 
it." 

"Who  was  that?" 


A   BROKEN   REED.  219 

"  Worthington,"  replied  Stannard,  naming  a  former 
famous  player.  "  He  was  down  on  the  side-lines 
beside  me  to-day  and  he  said  just  that.  He  said 
they  should  have  played  you  all  through  the  Wes- 
ley an  game." 

"  Well,  that 's  flattering." 

"  Better  say  it 's  true."  Had  he  not  been  in  a  pro- 
pitiatory mood,  Stannard  would  have  added,  and 
rightly,  "  You  know  you  think  so,"  but  as  it  was  he 
simply  went  on:  "It's  the  Institute  this  year  and 
the  Pudding  the  next.  Your  work's  surprising  all 
of  us." 

"  You  did  n't  think  I  could  do  it?  " 

"  I  did  n't  think  you  'd  care  to." 

"Too  tough?" 

"  Not  tough  enough." 

"  Say  too  weak  if  you  like." 

"  No,  only  you  're  a  little  too  spiritual,  I  always 
thought." 

"I  'm  afraid  you  're  still  flattering.  But  do  you 
think  only  those  a  trifle  nearer  brutes  than  we  can 
care  for  this  game  ?  You  are  surely  not  so  old  fash- 
ioned as  all  that." 

"  No,  hardly.  I  like  the  game  as  it  is  because  I 
look  on,  but  I  should  think  you  fellows  who  play 
would  want  a  change  in  some  of  the  rules,  if  you  're 
not —  well,  as  you  put  it,  a  trifle  nearer  brutes." 

"  Not  one  rule  should   be  altered.     Why  it 's  the 


220  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

physical  brutality  of  the  game  that  absorbs  the  men- 
tal brutality  of  the  players  —  and  some  of  the  specta- 
tors too." 

"  How  do  you  mean?" 

"  Well,  you  know  the  class  of  fellows  who  play  is 
all  right  and  often  the  best  stuff  in  College.  But  if 
they  were  n't  at  this,  you  know  what  many  would  be 
at  for  one  reason  or  another.  So  I  say,  better 
a  broken  leg  or  two  than  a  dozen  broken  hearts." 

"  By  Jove,  the  Major  was  right!  You  are  getting 
sentimental." 

Then,  not  liking  the  look  that  came  into  Jarvis* 
face,  Stannard  proceeded  to  say  what  he  had  been 
wanting  to  give  vent  to  ever  since  the  talk  began. 

"  Look  here,  Dick,"  he  continued,  "  I  want  to  apolo- 
gise to  you  for  that  trouble  I  made  in  the  Major's 
place  that  night." 

The  reference  was  indefinite,  but  it  served.  Dick 
felt  that  Stannard  owed  him  all  and  more  than  he 
said,  yet  it  always  made  him  feel  uncomfortable  to 
have  any  one  put  himself  conspicuously  in  the  wrong, 
so  he  tried  to  make  matters  straight  in  the  least 
clumsy  way  possible.  But  once  started,  Stannard 
appeared  determined  to  grovel  as  deeply  as  words 
would  allow. 

"  I  'm  glad  you  take  it  so  nicely,"  he  said,  con- 
tritely, "  for  of  course  your  marriage  is  your  own 
business,  you  know." 


A  BROKEN   REED.  221 

Both  tone  and  words  were  altogether  too  ingenuous 
to  be  passed  without  a  smile,  but  Jarvis  managed  to 
supplement  this  silent  comment  with  a  spoken  one 
calculated  to  lay  the  troublesome  spectre. 

"You  must  have  been  very  drunk  that  night, 
Stannard.  The  marriage  question  was  your  own 
propounding  entirely.  I  said  nothing  at  all  about 
it." 

"  Was  it  ?  Well,  I  was  wrong  anyhow.  I  've  been 
thinking  the  thing  over  a  good  deal  lately.  It's 
a  good  thing  for  a  chap  to  keep  In  touch  with  decent 
girls." 

"  Friends  again,  eh  ?  " 

It  was  the  Major  who  had  come  up  behind  them. 
There  was  a  difficult  pause.  Then  Stannard  tried 
to  remove  the  tension. 

"Quit  your  hot-air!  We  were  never  anything 
else.  Why,  you  're  just  in  time  to  join  in  a  discussion 
of  the  very  subject  you  fancied  we  fell  out  about." 

"No?     And  what's  that?" 

"Women." 

Jarvis  could  have  choked  him. 

"  I  'd  rather  talk  of  them  than  to  them  any  day. 
What  practical  branch  of  the  question  were  you 
wrestling  with  ?  " 

"  I  think  it  was  the  age  of  consent  for  males,  was  n't 
it,  Dick?" 

"  Really,  I  don't  remember/* 


222  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

"  In  other  words,  the  marriageable  age  for  college 
men,"  pursued  the  beaming  Stannard. 

"  Properly  speaking,  there  is  n't  any/'  said  the 
Major.  "  When  one  becomes  a  college  man  he  has 
passed  it,  and  If  he  lived  a  hundred  into  his  second 
childhood  he  would  n't  reach  it  again.  As  for  the 
age  of  consent,  they  kick  because  the  laws  don't 
adequately  defend  women,  whereas  they  don't  defend 
men  at  all.  I  'm  a  fair  specimen,  I  imagine,  and  I 
did  n't  know  my  mind  any  better  at  twenty-one  than 
I  did  at  twenty  and  eleven  twelfths  —  and  at  that 
time  1  was  n't  any  better  acquainted  with  it  than  I  was 
at  five.  I  am  going  into  a  propaganda  for  the  exten- 
sion of  those  laws  to  men.  To  tell  the  truth,  the 
thing  works  backward.  When  he  consents,  a  man 
shows  he  is  verging  on  senility,  and  therefore  unfit." 

The  Major  paused  for  an  applause  that  took  only 
the  form  of  a  nervous  laugh  from  Stannard. 

"  But  some  of  us  have  to  marry." 

"Yes,  I  shall  look  after  that  in  my  scheme.  I 
shall  substitute  marriage  for  capital  punishment  and 
get  the  votes  of  the  opponents  of  hanging.  Only  the 
most  healthy  criminals  shall  be  selected.  The  more 
lucky  ones  shall  go  to  prison  till  they  die.  But  the 
others  must  marry.  The  true  end  of  punishment  will 
thus  be  attained;  the  race  will  be  perpetuated  and 
objectionable  pride  ot  family  will  be  abolished.  — 
There  's  where  we  catch  the  Socialistic-Labour  party 


A  BROKEN   REE0.  223 

We  will  combat  heredity  ,with  the  noblest  environ- 
ment. The  only  danger  will  be  the  gradual  extinction 
of  crime." 

"  '  A  Modest  Proposal/  "  said  Jarvis. 

"Think  of  the  society  reporters,"  cried  Stannard 
"  A  charming  wedding  took  place  —  " 

"  Was  solemnised." 

"  Yes  —  in  the  main  corridor  of  the  penitentiary  at 
high  noon  yesterday,  when,  with  one  of  the  prettiest 
and  swellest  ceremonies  of  the  season,  Patsey  Branni- 
gan,  alias  'The  Whacker,'  was  married  to —  " 

"It  was  a  notable  function,"  put  in  the  Major, 
"  But  you  may  talk  as  you  will  —  " 

"  Since  you  came  up,"  said  Jarvis,  "  nobody  's  had 
a  chance  to  do  so.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  was  under 
the  impression  that  Stannard  and  I  had  been  discus- 
sing football." 

"And  the  game  has  made  you  rude.  Why  will 
you  insist  on  interrupting  my  carefully  prepared 
impromptu?" 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  I  am  not  the  only  offender 
along  that  line." 

"  Very  well,  as  you  will.  Only  don't  be  so  touchy. 
It 's  only  a  give-away.  And  if  you  must  marry  sooner 
or  later,  remember  this,  that  one  doesn't  marry  a 
woman,  but  a  companion.  Verbum  sap." 

Jarvis  left  them  with  that  phrase  in  his  ears.  He 
sat  up  later  than  he  should  have  done,  pondering  it. 


224  JARVIS  OF   HARVARD. 

He  was  used  to  the  Major's  ravings,  but  he  was  im- 
pressed with  the  idea  that  his  companion  had  builded 
better  than  he  knew  in  his  farewell  mock-warning. 
Sweet,  pure  and  beautiful,  as  his  young  passion  had 
divined  her  to  be,  even  it  could  not  exclude  all  doubt 
of  his  cousin's  fitness  as  Dick  Jarvis'  wife.  He  sat  at 
his  window  in  the  darkened  room,  turning  the  doubt 
over  in  his  mind  until  from  the  street  outside  came 
the  heavy  footfalls  of  a  party  of  belated  revelers 
returning  to  town  fresh  from  a  boisterous  trip  on 
"  Cap's  "  night-car.  Their  hoarse  voices  rose  through 
the  still  night  air  in  the  reckless  notes  of  a  rollicking 
popular  song,  — 

"There'll  be  a  hot  time  in  the  old  town  to-night." 

As  the  sound  died  away  other  voices  that  must 
have  come  from  Linden  Street,  sounded  faintly  across 
the  town  in  the  endless  burden  of  the  historic  Institute 
March  and  Dick  turned  into  bed.  The  idea  was  pre- 
posterous. He  was  not  going  to  risk  his  new-found 
happiness  for  any  such  trivial  doubts. 

He  held  to  his  determination  and  put  every  mis- 
giving aside.  He  passed  his  "  hour  exams  "  fairly 
well  and  went  about  his  athletic  work  with  all  his 
original  zest,  firm  in  the  resolve  to  let  nothing  militate 
against  this  success,  and  his  somewhat  boyish  enthu- 
siasm was  upheld  by  the  even  wilder  element  supplied 
from  that  of  the  Undergraduate  body. 

Meanwhile  Harvard's   team   as  a  whole,  although 


A    BROKEN   REED.  225 

surprisingly  fast,  had  to  admit  weakness  that  looked 
ill  beside  the  manner  in  which  Pennsylvania  was 
overwhelming  its  every  opponent  with  tremendous 
scores.  In  the  soul-trying  match  with  Amherst, 
Jarvis  was  particularly  at  his  worst.  Early  in  the 
game  he  had  again  been  substituted  for  Howell, 
whose  ankle  had  once  more  given  out,  and  on  a  kick- 
off  he  smashed  into  Karp,  Amherst's  big  guard,  with 
the  result  that  the  latter's  collar-bone  was  broken. 
Except  in  a  fight  in  town,  Dick  had  never  seriously 
hurt  a  man  before,  and  the  incident  made  him  so 
nervous  that,  in  the  pouring  rain,  he  allowed  Vorse, 
the  Amherst  tackle,  to  dash  by  him,  secure  the  ball 
on  a  "  fluke,"  and  all  but  score. 

The  quality  of  the  team  varied  from  day  to  day, 
but  the  general  tendency  gradually  made  in  the  right 
direction.  Thus,  though  the  first  day  after  the 
Amherst  game,  the  'Varsity  failed  to  score  against 
the  scrub,  on  the  next  there  was  a  decided  improve- 
ment in  team-work,  and  on  that  succeeding  Jarvis 
watched  them  from  the  side-lines  as  they  rolled,  up 
twenty-four  points  against  Columbia's  nothing.  An- 
other week  of  hard,  fast  work  and  of  vigorous  coach- 
ing followed.  Then  came  the  game  with  Bates  and 
there  began  the  really  serious  labour  for  the  later  half 
of  the  season.  Some  new  plays  were  tried,  one  of 
them  a  species  of  "  guards-back,"  and  then,  after  a 
brief  signal  practice  on  the  nineteenth,  the  'Varsity 

15 


226  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

team  and  an  equal  number  of  substitutes,  of  whom 
Jarvis  was  one,  took  a  Fall  River  train  for  New  York 
to  play  against  West  Point,  their  first  game  away 
from  home. 

That  contest  was  a  victory  to  the  tune  of  twenty- 
nine  to  nothing,  a  victory  of  weight,  speed,  and  brain 
against  grit  and  determination.  The  cadets  played  a 
plucky  game  throughout  both  halves.  At  the  start 
they  gained  thirty  yards  in  punting  and  were  then 
driven  down  the  field  by  rushes  through  centre  and 
tackle  for  a  Harvard  touchdown.  Then  the  West 
Pointers  held  their  opponents  well  and  a  series  of 
Crimson  injuries  again  got  Jarvis  into  the  game  just 
in  time  to  get  the  ball  on  a  fumble,  so  that  Haley 
could  kick  a  goal  from  field.  The  second  half  was  an 
easy  one  for  the  winners  and  not  much  work  was 
required  to  aid  their  vastly  superior  weight,  but 
Harvard's  line  had  shown  not  a  little  weakness,  and 
the  Pennsylvania  game  was  now  close  at  hand. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 
WHEN   KINGS   GO   FORTH   TO   BATTLE. 

ALTHOUGH  still,  strictly  speaking,  a  substitute, 
Jarvis  was  nevertheless  now  a  virtual  member  of  the 
'Varsity  eleven,  and  in  all  the  squad  there  was  no  one 
so  confident  of  the  team's  success.  Both  Yale  and 
Pennsylvania  had  been  playing  remarkable  games  and 
scoring  heavily  against  all  their  rivals,  but  Dick  had 
unlimited  faith  in  Harvard's  speed  against  the  weight 
of  these  two  teams,  and  contested  that  the  latter  one 
had  not  yet  met  a  first-class  eleven,  while,  though  the 
former  had  made  thirty-eight  points  against  Wesleyan 
on  the  preceding  Saturday,  "  there  was  nothing  in 
comparative  scores  anyhow." 

The  Harvard  coaches  were  not  so  sanguine.  When, 
on  the  twenty-second,  the  'Varsity  failed  to  score 
against  the  scrub,  they  even  either  splendidly  pre- 
tended or  really  felt  a  keen  despair,  and  from  that 
moment  the  work  became  a  species  of  galley-labour. 
There  were  "  blackboard  "  or  "  theory  "  lectures  every 
evening.  At  the  training-tables,  many  of  these 
coaches  ate  the  same  food  that  was  served  to  the  men. 
Willis,  who  had  been  to  Philadelphia  to  watch  a 


228  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

Pennsylvania  game,  returned  with  a  method  of  de 
fence  calculated  to  stop  the  "  guards-back  "  formation 
and  at  this  the  first  eleven,  massing  and  dropping  in 
the  centre,  was  drilled  ceaselessly.  The  result  was 
encouraging.  In  the  secret  practice  before  the  game 
with  the  Indians,  the  team  showed  its  speed  increased 
to  a  marvellous  extent. 

The  next  day,  in  a  mere  signal  practice,  Jarvis 
wrenched  his  arm,  and  was  thus  allowed  no  chance 
of  playing  against  the  Carlisle  team.  But  the  oppor- 
tunity of  again  watching  a  contest  from  the  side-lines 
was  a  needed  one,  and  even  he  granted  that,  good  as 
was  the  general  form  of  his  eleven,  the  scoring  of 
their  rivals  made  it  clear  that  there  must  be  still 
further  improvement  before  a  victory  over  Pennsyl- 
vania would  be  at  all  a  certainty. 

Meanwhile,  it  looked  for  a  few  days  as  if  there 
might  be  no  chance  to  try  conclusions  with  the  Red 
and  Blue.  One  of  the  men  on  that  team  had  already 
represented  his  college  in  athletics  for  four  academic 
years,  and  Harvard  opinion  was,  therefore,  inclined 
to  consider  him  ineligible  for  this  season's  game, 
while  Pennsylvania  was  as  firm  in  interpreting  the 
rule  in  question  as  speaking  of  calendar  years. 
There  was  some  doubt,  too,  in  the  Crimson  mind 
about  one  of  the  other  Philadelphians,  who,  Harvard 
claimed,  was  a  special  student.  The  Undergraduates 
of  both  colleges  grew  decidedly  excited,  and  for  a 


WHEN   KINGS   GO   FORTH   TO   BATTLE.         22Q 

time  the  controversy  was,  among  them,  a  warm  one. 
But  in  the  end  the  Cambridge  committee  made  it 
clear  that  no  formal  protest  had  been  made,  and  that, 
as  the  game  was  scheduled,  and  Pennsylvania  had  a 
clear  right  to  interpret  its  own  rules  as  it  saw  fit,  there 
could  be  no  shirking  of  the  game  on  the  part  of  Har- 
vard. 

So  it  was  that,  in  the  pink  of  condition  and  certain 
of  victory,  the  Pennsylvania  men  arrived  at  Auburn- 
dale  on  the  first  of  November.  Not  one  player 
doubted  his  team's  ultimate  success.  Half  Phila- 
delphia had  cheered  the  eleven  as  they  left  Broad 
Street  Station,  and  then  wagered,  giving  big  odds 
upon  their  victorious  return.  No  rival  had  thus  far 
been  able  to  withstand  their  slow  but  fatal  attack. 
They  had  beaten  Columbia  thirty  to  nothing,  and 
Chicago  had  lost  to  them  by  a  score  of  forty  to  noth- 
ing. Every  man  was  fit  to  play  the  game  of  his  life ; 
the  team  was  the  best  its  college  had  put  forward  in 
years;  the  "guards-back"  was  invincible,  and  the 
memory  of  Harvard's  recent  series  of  victories  over 
the  Red  and  Blue  would  assuredly  be  wiped  out  by  a 
tremendous  triumph  for  Pennsylvania. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  was  clear  that  the  Crimson 
eleven  was  not  at  its  best.  Harvard's  great  game 
was,  of  course,  with  Yale  and  it  was  not  desirable 
that  the  men  should  reach  perfection  before  that 
battle.  In  the  last  few  days,  moreover,  there  had 


23O  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

been  some  very  ragged  playing,  and  one  or  two  of 
the  best  men  were  in  bad  shape. 

Shortly  before  the  date  of  the  Pennsylvania  contest, 
there  was  introduced,  however,  a  curious  device,  a 
mechanical  or  "  wooden  "  coach,  which  worked  won- 
ders in  the  instruction  of  offensive  strategy.  The 
apparatus  resembled  a  small  battering-ram.  It  was  a 
heavy  wood  framework  mounted  on  wheels,  and  pre- 
senting a  padded  board  at  the  front,  running  parallel 
to  the  ground,  about  three  feet  above  the  turf.  The 
'Varsity  linesmen  were  placed  opposite  this,  and  at 
the  firing  of  a  revolver  lunged  ahead  against  the 
padded  board.  If  one  man  were  slow,  or  a  fraction 
of  a  second  behind  his  neighbours,  the  machine  would 
swing  around  in  his  direction.  That  was  all  that  was 
done  that  day.  The  next  there  followed  a  light  open 
practice  and  then  the  team  was  practically  ready  for 
Pennsylvania. 

On  the  day  of  the  game  all  Massachusetts  and 
most  of  Philadelphia  appeared  to  have  poured  itself 
into  Soldiers'  Field.  Pennsylvania  had  secured  a  large 
block  of  seats,  and  from  that  point  clattered  forth 
the  long  yell  of  the  Quakers  and  rolled  their  strong 

chorus,  — 

"  Hurrah,  hurrah,  Pennsylvania ! 
Hurrah  for  the  Red  and  the  Blue  !  " 

Hardy  was  among  the  Harvard  supporters  as  the 
guide  of  Dick's  father  and  mother,  who  had  been  pre- 
vailed upon  to  be  present.  He  pointed  out  to  them 


WHEN   KINGS   GO   FORTH   TO   BATTLE.         231 

the  persons  of  note  in  the  College  world  around  them, 
and  explained  as  best  he  could,  how  the  position  of 
Jarvis  as  a  substitute  was  none  the  less  one  of  honour. 
He  made  clear  the  tragedy  of  John  the  Orangeman, 
as  that  official  drew  his  magic  circle  about  the  grid- 
iron, and  he  was  deep  in  an  explanation  of  how  this 
was  "  perfect  football  weather"  when  the  teams  began 
to  line  up.  From  that  moment  he  forgot  everything 
but  the  game. 

Ware,  the  Pennsylvania  captain  and  especial  tower 
of  strength,  had  called  the  toss  and  was  instructing 
and  placing  his  men.  There  was  a  moment's  silence 
and  then  the  ball  rose  into  the  air  and  spun  down  the 
field. 

Sill  caught  it  on  Harvard's  twenty-five  yard  line 
and  in  an  instant  was  making  one  of  his  famous 
plunges  forward.  But  his  interference  had  formed 
slowly  and  a  half  dozen  Pennsylvania  players  were 
upon  him  before  he  had  gone  five  yards.  The  Red 
and  Blue  crowd  shouted  to  a  man,  as  Harvard  did  but 
little  better  on  the  next  two  plays,  but  with  the  third 
a  silence  fell  upon  them,  for  a  crimson  suited  warrior 
had  gone  between  left  tackle  and  end  for  twenty-five 
yards. 

The  battle  was  on  in  earnest  and  the  stands  were 
going  wild.  In  midfield  Harvard  was  held  ;  Pennsyl- 
vania got  the  ball  on  a  fumble  and  so  immediately 
formed  to  bring  the  "  guards-back "  into  play. 


232  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

Now  was  the  time  of  test.  Could  the  elaborately 
planned  Crimson  defence  withstand  that  attack?  Not 
at  first,  for  Ware  had  dived  ahead  for  ten  yards.  But 
the  next  time  McTague  failed  to  budge  the  Harvard 
line  and  there  followed  a  disastrous  fumble  that  forced 
Pennsylvania  to  punt. 

It  was  one  of  those  instants  in  a  game  when  the 
crowd  forgets  to  cheer  and  the  only  sound  in  the  great 
arena  is  the  delicate  and  incessant  clicking  of  the 
telegraph  instruments  that  are  controlling  the  minia- 
ture score-boards  at  the  newspaper  offices  of  far-away 
cities.  Haley  caught  the  kick,  but  was  downed  in  his 
tracks  and  was  forced  to  return  it  on  the  next  play. 
So,  back  again  in  midfield,  the  "  guards-back " 
formation  came  into  repeated  use. 

Once  more  the  favourite  play  of  the  Philadelphians 
failed  to  gain.  The  ball  was  fumbled  and  lost,  and 
straightway  Harvard  began  a  series  of  lightning-like 
attacks  upon  the  Pennsylvania  ends  that  was  termi- 
nated only  by  the  failure  of  an  attempt  at  a  goal  from 
field. 

And  soon  the  trick  was  repeated.  One  Crimson 
back  burst  through  the  tackles,  another  smashed  into 
the  centre  and  a  third  slipped  by  the  end. 

"  Touchdown  !  Touchdown  !  "  yelled  the  Harvard 
stands. 

The  runner  —  Hardy  saw  that  it  was  Gaswin  —  had 
passed  all  the  opposing  rush-line  and  zig-zagged  in 


WHEN   KINGS   GO    FORTH   TO   BATTLE.        233 

splendid  style  until  he  was  finally  caught  thirty-five 
yards  from  the  Pennsylvania  posts. 

Another  series  of  rapid  plays  —  here  three  yards 
and  there  five  —  and  then  the  Red  and  Blue  end  was 
put  out  of  the  way,  a  waiting  half-back  "  boxed  "  and 
Gaswin  had  scored  for  Harvard  with  the  giant  Ware 
clinging  helplessly  about  his  waist. 

The  whole  crowd  on  the  Crimson  stand  was  on  its 
feet.  Hats  and  flags  were  tossing  over  the  sea  of 
heads.  A  wild  howl  of  triumph  crashed  and  thun- 
dered over  the  field.  Then  followed  the  strong 
(i  Three  Harvards  and  three  times  three  !  "  The 
cheering  was  so  long  and  so  loud  that  the  players, 
after  the  goal  had  been  kicked,  had  to  raise  their 
hands  in  appeal  for  silence  that  the  signals  might 
be  heard. 

It  was  still  early,  there  had  been  only  twelve 
minutes  of  play,  yet  that  touchdown  was  the  begin- 
ning of  the  end.  Pennsylvania  fought  hard  and 
bravely.  One  or  two  of  her  younger  players  were 
bewildered,  but  the  team  as  a  whole  was  superb.  In 
vain.  Never  had  band  of  men  been  more  hopeful. 
How  terribly  the  enthusiasts  were  disappointed  is 
matter  of  history  even  yet  too  fresh  in  the  Pennsyl- 
vania mind  to  need  a  record  here.  With  what  mad 
screams,  with  how  violent  heartburnings  did  they 
watch  that  unavailing  struggle  !  Through  the  long 
hour  of  the  game,  even,  it  seemed,  through  the  hid- 


234  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

eous  wait  between  the  halves,  the  Red  and  Blue  fought 
as  it  had  never  fought  before.  And  yet  with  every 
incentive,  with  the  best  team  and  chance  of  a  gener- 
ation, after  flaunting  more  boastfully  than  ever, 
though  fighting  against  younger  and  lighter  men,  it 
could  do  nothing.  With  all  her  splendidly  developed 
aggressive  play,  Pennsylvania  could  only  once  reach 
her  opponent's  goal-line  and  the  tide  of  struggling 
men  that  ebbed  and  flowed  across  the  field  brought 
but  one  score  to  the  Philadelphia  team. 

That  was  in  the  second  half.  After  a  blocked  kick 
and  more  end-running  in  the  first,  Harvard  had*  made 
seventeen  points.  Then  Pennsylvania  "  braced " 
splendidly  and,  taking  quick  advantage  of  the  sur- 
prise thus  excited  in  the  Crimson  ranks,  got  ten  yards 
for  an  offside  play,  doggedly  forced  its  way  down 
to  Harvard's  eight  yard  line  and,  with  something  of 
the  old  grit  that  had  won  it  so  many  successes  on 
similar  fields,  sent  its  big  captain,  who  had  all  along 
been  working  wonders,  around  the  Crimson  right  end 
for  Pennsylvania's  only  touchdown. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jarvis  at  that  moment  had  the  pleasure 
of  seeing  their  son  called  on  to  the  field  and,  had  they 
understood  the  game,  would  have  been  more  than 
satisfied  with  his  playing.  But  that  was  left  for  the 
coaches.  Harvard  was  taking  no  chances.  The 
game  was  won  and  the  directors  of  the  team  were 
already  looking  forward  to  the  Yale  contest.  So  the 


WHEN   KINGS   GO   FORTH   TO   BATTLE.         235 

Crimson  punted  whenever  there  was  the  slightest 
excuse  and,  so  far  as  a  fond  parent  was  concerned, 
Dick  was  merely  one  of  a  little  army. 

Thus  the  game  ended.  Pennsylvania  had  recovered 
itself  and,  grimy  and  sweat-stained,  had  resisted  at- 
tack with  all  the  heroic  grandeur  of  soldiers  of  the 
forlorn  hope,  as  firm  as  the  Swiss  Guards  that  day 
that  Madame  Campan  wrote  of  them  that  they 
"  etaient  rangees  comme  de  veritables  murailles." 
The  Harvard  charge  hurled  itself  against  that  barrier 
only  to  fall  back  as  helpless  as  the  waves  from  a 
granite  rock. 

Theoretically  there  should  thus  have  been  a  few 
drops  of  consolation  in  the  Pennsylvania  cup  of  bitter- 
ness. Actually  there  was  not  one.  To  the  outsider 
the  reason  was  hard  to  discover,  but  to  the  Phila- 
delphia men  it  was  sufficiently  evident.  Their  team 
had,  indeed,  battled  strongly  and  well.  But  it  had 
been  proclaimed  the  best  eleven  the  college  had  ever 
sent  out  and  to  it  had  confidently  been  intrusted  the 
honour  of  redeeming  the  Red  and  Blue  from  the 
shame  of  former  defeats.  Hope  does  not  generally 
spring  eternal  in  the  breast  of  a  defeated  football 
player,  and  as  the  crestfallen  band  stood  panting  in 
the  athletic-house,  regardless  of  the  turmoil  without, 
there  was  nothing  left  to  lighten  their  desolation. 

And  Harvard?  As  the  whistle  had  blown  the 
black  hundreds  of  her  Undergraduates  had  poured  in- 


236  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

to  the  field  and  hoisted  their  champions  upon  their 
shoulders.  Dick,  from  his  uncomfortable  eyrie,  held 
fast  from  struggling  by  the  arms  of  Lippincott  and 
Mallard,  heard  the  College  band  strike  up  "  Glory, 
Glory  to  the  Crimson"  and  saw  it  start  to  march 
around  the  field.  In  an  instant  the  five  thousand  men 
were  marching  behind  the  music  in  lines  of  twenty- 
five.  Their  arms  over  each  other's  shoulders,  they 
followed  the  instruments,  singing  with  one  voice,  the 
odd  lines  two-stepping  forward  to  the  right,  the  even 
ones  to  the  left.  Men  hitherto  utter  strangers,  the 
pedantic  law-students,  the  inconnu  from  the  Medical 
School,  Sophomore  and  Freshman,  "  grind "  and 
clubman,  went  swaying  to  and  fro.  As  Jarvis  looked 
he  felt  the  stimulus  of  that  greater  spirit  which  could 
move  so  many  and  so  different  men  to  such  pitch  of 
common  enthusiasm,  and  he  read  its  true  meaning 
beneath  this  superficial  expression.  The  Major 
dashed  wildly  by  him  on  the  arm  of  a  man  from 
Foxcroft.  He  waved  his  hand  and  shouted  "  Blest  be 
the  tie  that  binds  !  " 

What  a  night  followed !  Until  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning  half  the  student-body  of  Harvard  made 
hideous  the  Boston  darkness.  A  regiment  of  extra 
policemen  had  been  detailed  to  keep  watch  on  the 
revellers  and  the  revellers  gave  them  enough  to  do. 
On  Washington  and  Boylston  Streets,  rapid  transit 
was  an  impossibility  and  the  cars  crawled  with  the 


WHEN  KINGS   GO   FORTH   TO   BATTLE.         237 

utmost  difficulty  through  the  crowds.  Money  had 
been  easily  won  and  was  being  more  easily  spent. 
At  the  theatres  the  performances  were  interrupted  by 
yells  and  the  willing  actors  were  called  upon  again 
and  again  to  sing  some  favourite  song,  while  afterwards, 
last  and  most  delightful  of  all,  there  were  the  delicious 
old  fights  with  uniformed  authority. 

None  of  this,  of  course,  was  for  Jarvis.  At  the 
moment,  that  young  gentleman  went  to  bed  well  satis- 
fied with  his  work,  but  in  a  few  days  he  suffered  a 
reaction  and  for  the  first  time  felt  a  fear  of  failure  in 
his  attempt  to  hold  his  position  on  the  squad.  This 
was,  indeed,  the  best  thing  that  could  have  happened 
to  him,  for,  on  the  second  eleven,  he  now  played  with 
a  mad  desperation,  a  blind  rage,  guided  by  a  wild 
coolness  of  despair,  that  secured  his  triumph.  The 
other  men  were  playing  for  distinction ;  Dick  was 
fighting  for  his  life. 

The  mood  served  well  and  won  him,  who  did  not 
play,  a  notice  that  compared  him  favourably  with  the 
regular  man  who,  on  the  Saturday  following,  allowed 
Brown  to  score.  At  the  end  of  that  match,  when  the 
squad  of  muddy,  steaming  men  had  trotted  into  the 
little  house  just  outside  of  the  field,  the  head  coach 
called  the  first  eleven  to  one  side  and  proceeded  to 
give  them  some  severe  opinions.  Dick,  fearing  that 
his  chance  was  forever  gone,  was  sitting  on  the  floor 
in  a  corner  and  heard  only  as  if  in  a  dream  the  coaches 


238  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

calling  the  names  of  the  substitutes  who  were  shortly 
to  begin  work  for  the  Yale  game. 

Suddenly  a  familiar  sound  smote  his  ear.  Involun- 
tarily he  looked  up.  It  was  his  own  name  that  he 
had  heard.  In  another  instant  the  misty  figure  of 
"  The  Boss,"  was  before  him  and  a  voice  that  had 
echoed  in  his  dreams  until  it  seemed  capable  of  ex- 
pressing only  rebuke,  was  saying  to  him  now,  — 

"  I  guess  we  '11  want  you  for  sub-right-end  against 
Yale." 

Such  hard  labour  was  never  before  seen  at  Cam- 
bridge. A  few  days  of  relaxation  had  been  advised 
and  then  began,  behind  closed  doors  and  with  a  strict 
press  censorship,  the  terrible  strain  of  a  preparation 
to  which  the  whole  season  had  been,  it  seemed  to 
Jarvis,  but  as  a  prelude.  It  was,  however,  only  an 
increase  of  the  former  work,  with  the  introduction  of 
some  tricks  and  the  practising  of  starts  by  a  pistol, 
but  there  was  a  decided  "  sump "  noted  by  the 
coaches ;  their  men  had  beyond  a  doubt  grown  stale 
in  body  and  in  spirit  —  were  steadily  losing  in  flesh 
and  fire  —  and  terror  began  to  gnaw  their  hearts. 

Not  so  Jarvis.  He  was  serenely  confident  now, 
both  that  he  would  have  a  chance  to  play  at  New 
Haven  and  that  the  team  that  had  so  worsted  Penn- 
sylvania would  never  be  vanquished  at  all.  It  was 
true  that  all  the  while  Yale  had  been  playing  hard 
games.  On  the  seventeenth  of  October  she  had  more 


WHEN   KINGS   GO  FORTH   TO   BATTLE.         239 

than  doubled  Harvard's  score  against  Bowdoin;  on 
the  twentieth  she  had  run  up  thirty-eight  points 
against  Wesleyan  ;  on  the  tenth  of  November  she  had 
beaten  the  Indians  thirty-five  to  nothing  and  finally, 
a  week  later,  had  vanquished  Princeton's  gallant 
little  band  of  mere  boys  by  twenty-nine  to  five.  Then 
a  crowd  of  cheering  Undergraduates  had  seen  the 
Harvard  team  off  for  Meriden,  there  to  spend  the  last 
few  days  in  hard  practice  on  the  dry  turf  of  League 
Park.  Thus  it  was  that  at  last  Dick,  in  the  dining- 
room  of  the  Lynnthrope  Hotel,  found  himself  joining 
in  the  chorus  of  "  I  fit  for  Gen'r'l  Grant "  on  the  very 
last  night  before  the  Yale  game. 


/{ M^ 

/  ^    W 

•£7 


CHAPTER  XVII. 
AN   ATHLETIC   TRAGEDY. 

EXCITEMENT  over  a  coming  football  game  had 
rarely  before  reached  such  a  height  as  on  the  eve  of 
that  year's  contest  with  Yale.  In  the  recent  seasons 
two  tie  games  and  one  defeat  had  done  much  to  lower 
the  prestige  of  the  New  Haven  college  over  Harvard 
and  the  brilliant  work  of  the  latter  eleven  for  this  year 
had  so  proven  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Cambridge 
enthusiasts  the  superiority  of  their  representatives 
that  the  anxiety  to  be  "  in  at  the  death  "  had  reached 
a  pitch  wholly  incomprehensible  to  the  Philistine. 
For  many  years  of  old  the  Crimson  had  been  driven 
to  annual  slaughter ;  for  another  period  there  had  been 
an  athletic  divorcement,  when  animosity  found  vent 
even  in  the  wording  of  printed  letter-heads,  and  then 
had  followed  the  one  victory  sandwiched  between  the 
two  tie  games. 

The  tickets  were  now  sold  by  lot  and  the  old 
method  which  involved  standing  on  line  for  twenty- 
four  hours  had  been  done  away  with.  But  the  "  rush  " 
was  none  the  less  for  that.  Two  days  before  the 
Saturday  of  the  game  a  Harvard  army  of  eight  thou-. 


AN   ATHLETIC   TRAGEDY.  241 

sand  began  to  move  upon  New  Haven.  They  came 
from  San  Francisco,  from  St.  Augustine,  from  Europe 
even,  for  that  one  afternoon.  Special  trains  crowded 
one  another  all  the  way  from  New  York  to  Boston 
and  Harvard  clubs  with  a  set  of  Pullmans  to  them- 
selves were  moved  bodily  to  the  side-tracks  in  the 
New  Haven  yards. 

In  outsiders  the  splendid  record  of  both  teams,  the 
extremes  of  play  and  system  to  be  employed,  and  the 
fact  that  the  game  was  to  decide  beyond  shadow  of 
doubt  the  championship  of  the  season,  awakened  an 
excitement  almost  equal  to  that  of  the  student-bodies. 
Yale  was  a  five  to  four  favourite  on  the  New  York 
Stock  Exchange,  but  takers  were  legion  and,  every 
good  ticket  and  many  counterfeits  having  been  dis- 
posed of,  the  New  Haven  management  had  been  for 
days  busy  putting  up  hundreds  of  extra  seats  and 
wondering  how  twenty-seven  thousand  people  were  to 
be  accommodated  on  a  field  meant  for  twenty-two 
thousand.  Such  a  fight  for  tickets  was  unprecedented 
even  in  the  old  Springfield  days,  and  many  a  specu- 
lator got  fifty  dollars  for  a  single  one. 

The  town  awoke  that  Saturday  morning  to  find 
itself  in  the  grip  of  such  a  crowd  as  it  had  never 
before  seen.  The  flood  had  begun  at  midnight  and 
continued  until  the  moment  of  the  game.  The  day 
broke  wet  and  chill  with  a  northeast  wind  that  soon 
brought  on  a  heavy  rain.  As  from  the  very  earth 


242  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

there  sprang  up  a  corps  of  fakirs  laden  with  gaudy 
umbrellas  and  parti-coloured  oilskins,  who  offered  also 
for  sale  every  sort  of  ware  that  might  conceivably 
tempt  the  mobs  of  spectators.  Through  all  the 
streets  from  the  largest  hotel  to  Yale  Field  there 
stretched  a  continuous  line  of  men  crying  to  passersby 
to  purchase  flags,  streamers,  badges,  feathers,  brooms, 
of  crimson  and  of  blue;  cigarettes,  cigars,  coffee, 
flasks  of  whiskey ;  sandwiches  and  frankfurters ;  mega- 
phones and  seat-cushions.  There  were  enough  to 
patronise  them.  The  whole  field  would  be  packed 
and,  most  enthusiastic  of  all,  there  too  was  the  real 
football  girl  wearing  violets  or  American  beauties, 
she  to  whom  victory  meant  nearly  as  much  as  to  the 
swarms  of  men  who  were  placing  their  money  with 
the  "  bookies "  in  the  bar-rooms,  enlarged  for  the 
occasion. 

The  spectators  started  for  the  arena  afoot,  in 
carriages  or  in  the  swarming  cars,  as  early  as  twelve- 
thirty,  there  to  sit  and  sing  and  shiver  and  cheer  until 
the  teams  appeared.  First  on  the  field  was  Yale's 
mascot,  a  white  bulldog  clad  in  blue.  But  John  the 
the  Orangeman  followed  shortly,  without  his  cart,  yet 
splendid  in  the  possession  of  a  beribboned  plug  hat 
and  a  heavy  cane. 

The  Harvard  team  had  risen  betimes  that  morning. 
Dick  Jarvis,  indeed,  felt  as  if  he  had  not  slept  a  wink. 
There  was  a  short  run  before  breakfast,  a  cold  bath 


AN  ATHLETIC  TRAGEDY.  243 

and  a  "  rub  down."  On  the  train  somebody  handed 
out  copies  of  the  "  Crimson  "  with  its  portraits  of  the 
two  teams  and  its  non-committal  editorial.  Dick  saw 
his  own  name  in  the  list  of  the  players :  — 

"R.  Jarvis,  '03,  r.  e.,  21,  6.00,  155." 

He  read  what  the  paper  had  to  say  of  the  game  — 
he  had  seen  no  other  journal  for  a  month  —  and  was 
surprised  at  its  tone.  He  knew  that  some  of  his 
companions  had  lately  fallen  off  in  weight  and  strength, 
but  he  was  himself  still  certain  of  their  victory  and 
could  afford  to  smile. 

When  the  special  had  pulled  into  New  Haven  they 
were  driven  to  the  hotel.  There  the  police  fought  a 
way  for  them,  through  the  crowd  and  they  had  a  light 
lunch  which  most  of  them,  despite  the  urging  of  the 
coaches,  would  hardly  touch.  Then  they  were  put 
into  open  coaches  and  made  for  the  field. 

"  I  'm  glad  it 's  cleared,"  said  Jarvis  as  he  looked 
out  upon  the  dreary  gray  and  purple  hills  dotted 
with  cold  houses  strangely  yellow  and  white. 

"  Hope  the  field  '11  be  all  right,"  replied  the  man  at 
his  elbow. 

"  Oh,"  said  a  third  man  laughing  nervously,  "  it  is ; 
they  Ve  had  it  under  straw  and  Tom  says  it 's  as  dry 
as  tinder." 

Jarvis  leaned  back  in  his  corner  and  waited,  trem- 
bling. He  was  sure,  yet  terribly,  as  the  phrase  goes, 
"  on  edge."  The  truth  is,  he  was  "  stale,"  though  he 


244  JARVIS  OF  HARVARD. 

little  thought  it,  and  so  fell  into  a  kind  of  waking- 
dream,  from  which  he  emerged  only  when,  with  thirty 
others,  he  trotted  out  from  the  Harvard  tent,  under 
the  stands,  and  into  the  howling  amphitheatre  of  Yale 
Field. 

On  all  sides  of  the  greensward  rose  the  black 
stands,  restlessly  tossing  and  relieved  by  the  flutter- 
ing flags  of  the  rival  armies.  To  Jarvis  it  seemed  as 
if  they  were  the  parted  waves  of  the  Eastern  sea  and 
he  the  Pharaoh  upon  whom  they  were  waiting  to  sweep 
down.  He  felt  as  if  those  thousands  upon  thousands 
of  eyes  were  fixed  upon  his  nakedness.  Then  he 
realised  that  the  West  Stand,  where  flew  the  Harvard 
colours,  had  risen  en  masse  and  that  "  Three  long 
Harvards  and  three  times  three  !  "  were  again  thun- 
dering over  the  field  and  echoing  back. 

A  little  scurrying  about  the  gridiron,  and  then  he 
took  his  seat  on  the  side-lines  while  the  regular  team 
"  limbered  up  "  by  punting,  "  snapping,"  and  passing. 

As  a  rubber  wrapped  him  in  a  great  gray  blanket,  the 
East  Stand,  where  the  main  body  of  Yale  "  rooters," 
were  seated,  burst  into  a  shout,  and  he  saw  the  New 
Haven  men  run  out  as  he  had  done.  They  were 
splendid  fellows,  every  one  a  giant  in  weight  and 
height,  and  their  ruddy  cheeks  brought  out  signifi- 
cantly the  peaked,  pale  faces  of  nearly  all  the  Har- 
vard men.  Few  of  them  wore  any  armour  save  the 
usual  pads  and  shin-guards,  whereas  nearly  all  the 


AN  ATHLETIC   TRAGEDY.  245 

Cambridge  eleven  had  black  leather  head  pieces  and 
ear-protectors. 

All  this  while  the  spectators  were  keeping  up  a 
constant  pandemonium  of  cheering  and  singing,  led  by 
men  who  waved  their  hats  in  time  along  the  side  lines. 

"  Boola,  boola,  boola,  boola  ! " 
sang  the  Yale  legions. 

"  Brek-ek-kek-kex,  koax,  koax ! "  they  shouted 
their  version  of  the  old  Greek  chorus,  and  then, 

"  O-o-o-h ! 

More  work  for  the  undertaker, 
A  good  little  job  for  the  casket-maker! 
In  the  local  cemetery  they  Ve 
Been  very,  very  busy  on  a  new-made  grave,  — 
No  hope  for  Harvard  !  " 

The  lungs  of  the  whole  Blue  force  would  toss  the 
notes  across  the  arena,  and  they  were  hardly  silent 
before  the  Harvard  stand  at  Jarvis'  back  would  shout 
in  answer  the  old  song  to  the  tune  of  John  Brown's 

Body. 

"  Glory,  glory  to  the  Crimson, 
Glory,  glory  to  the  Crimson, 
Glory,  glory  to  the  Crimson, 
For  this  is  Harvard's  day  1 " 

In  front  of  Dick,  across  the  field,  he  saw  silhouetted 
against  the  gray  sky  on  the  top  of  the  East  Stand  the 
telegraph  poles  over  which  were  to  pass  to  New  York, 
to  half  the  country,  and,  above  all,  to  the  expectant 
crowds  left  behind  in  Cambridge,  the  bulletins  of  the 
game.  At  the  other  end  of  the  oblong  a  band  was 


246  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

playing,  in  pantomime,  an  air  not  one  note  of  which 
could  be  heard  twenty  yards  away.  Into  the  boxes 
at  the  foot  of  the  tiers  of  seats  New  York  and  Boston 
society  had  swept  at  an  early  hour.  Dick  dared  not 
turn  his  head,  and  yet  he  knew  —  and  it  steeled  his 
nerve  and  raised  his  courage  to  know  it  —  that  some- 
where there  Peggy  had  found  a  place.  Never  had 
knight  at  tourney  a  better  reason  to  fight  well  than 
had  he.  And  he  would  fight  well.  The  chance 
would  come ;  he  would  do  his  best  and  then,  after  the 
game,  he  would  somehow  seek  her  out  and  tell  her 
all,  and  she  would  forgive  him,  and  the  realisation  of 
the  dream  would  have  begun. 

In  the  midst  of  the  teams  now  going  through  their 
signals  at  opposite  ends  of  the  gridiron  there  appeared 
two  men,  one  a  little  fellow  in  gray  business  clothes 
and  cap,  the  other  in  a  golf  suit.  The  coaches  came 
hurrying  back  among  the  substitutes  and  then  the 
umpire  and  referee,  each  bringing  with  him  the  cap- 
tain of  one  of  the  teams,  met  in  the  centre  of  the  field. 

A  coin  gleamed  in  the  air. 

"  Heads  !  "  Jarvis  heard  his  commander  shout. 

And  then  Harvard  had  won  the  toss,  had  chosen, 
because  of  a  slight  wind,  to  defend  the  north  goal  and 
had  given  Yale  the  ball. 

Vail  was  preparing  to  kick.  The  teams  scattered 
over  the  field  to  catch  and  advance,  or  to  rush  forward 
and  check. 


AN  ATHLETIC  TRAGEDY.         247 

"  Are  you  ready,  Yale  ?    Are  you  ready,  Harvard  ?  " 

Jarvis  clenched  his  hands  and  half  rose  to  his  feet. 
There  is  a  terrible  catching  of  the  breath  before  that 
kick-off.  So  much  may  depend  upon  the  result  and 
anything  may  directly  follow.  For  twenty-seven 
thousand  excited  men  and  women  the  sun  was  stand- 
ing still  upon  Gibeon. 

"  P-z-z-z  !  "  went  the  whistle. 

Up  flashed  Vail's  leg.  There  was  a  loud  thud  ;  the 
whole  Yale  team  dashed  down  the  field ;  the  whole 
Harvard  eleven  ran  forward  to  meet  them,  and  the 
bit  of  inflated  pig-skin  careened  down  toward  the 
Harvard  goal,  and  fell  straight  into  Haley's  waiting 
arms. 

The  little  captain  ran  lightly  forward  a  few  steps 
and  then,  with  the  Yale  forwards  nearly  upon  him, 
paused  and  returned  the  punt. 

Dick  gasped.  He  saw  the  Blue  team  wheel  about 
as  one  man ;  he  saw  Kniff  of  Yale  catch  the  ball ;  he 
saw  him  fumble  it  and  at  once  he  saw  Howell  fall 
upon  the  New  Haven  man  and  down  him  crashing 
where  he  had  stood.  Then  the  referee's  whistle 
sounded.  Kay  had  been  off-side,  and  the  Yale  team, 
forced  to  retreat  to  its  thirty-five  yard  line,  kicked 
again. 

Dick  heard  another  cheer  behind  him,  but,  from 
that  instant  until  the  end  of  the  first  half,  was  lost  to 
all  save  the  sight  immediately  before  his  eyes. 


248  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

The  next  attempt  at  a  kick  was  an  improvement ; 
the  ball  sailed  slowly,  and  seemed  to  hang  for  a  mo- 
ment suspended  in  mid-air  before  it  descended  at 
Harvard's  ten-yard  line.  Gaswin  caught  it  and  kicked 
back  to  Kean,  who  was  about  to  run  forward  when 
Howell  came  upon  him  like  a  flash  and  threw  him 
hard,  forty-five  yards  from  the  Blue's  posts.  The 
teams  lined  up  on  the  instant,  and  the  game  had 
fairly  begun. 

In  a  moment  Yale  had  started  its  new  method  of 
play,  the  "tackles-back."  Broelom,  the  left  tackle, 
plunged  through  the  opposite  side  of  the  Harvard 
line.  In  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  Gaswin  had  thrown 
him  violently  upon  his  back,  but  Yale  had  gained 
four  yards.  In  a  second  the  play  was  repeated,  and 
Yale's  right  half-back  went  through  almost  the  same 
place  for  two  yards  more. 

The  New  Haven  men  were  playing  with  terrible 
force  and  lightning-like  rapidity.  Their  left-half  shot 
around  the  end  behind  splendid  interference  for 
twenty-five  yards  before  Gaswin  had  broken  through 
and  downed  him  on  Harvard's  thirty-yard  line.  He 
had  hardly  called  "  Down !  "  and  the  Crimson  men 
were  not  yet  all  in  the  line  before  Broelom  had  been 
shot  into  their  centre.  Then  a  Yale  man  passed 
Cleblamp  at  Harvard's  left,  and  Chawdick  and  Kean 
plunged  their  way  through  to  the  six  yard  mark. 

Even  to  the  sanguine  Dick  it  was  already  evident 


AN  ATHLETIC   TRAGEDY  249 

that  this  was  to  be  no  repetition  of  the  Pennsylvania 
game.  He  had  hoped  that  they  might  "  get  the  jump 
on  Yale,"  but  the  tables  had  been  turned.  Neverthe- 
less, the  contest  was  still  young  and  though  the  New 
Haven  team,  with  its  marvellous  speed  and  the  won- 
derful nature  of  its  "  team-work  "  —  the  whole  eleven 
acting  as  one  man  —  seemed  terrible  with  the  irre- 
sistible (t  tackles-back "  formation,  yet  Harvard  was 
thus  far  lasting  with  a  fine  endurance  and  doing  its 
best,  by  brilliant  and  sensational  tackles  to  force  an 
"  open  game." 

For  Jarvis  and  his  companions  the  struggle  was  one 
thing;  to  the  spectators  at  their  backs  it  was  quite 
another.  To  the  former  every  play  was  clear  and 
reasonable,  but  the  latter  saw  only  a  double  line  of 
men  suddenly  resolved,  like  the  figures  in  a  kaleido- 
scope, into  a  great  pile  of  twisted  squirming  human- 
ity from  which,  now  and  again,  one  desperate,  dis- 
hevelled figure  would  shoot  forth,  hugging  the  ball 
close  to  its  breast. 

To  neither  sort  of  spectator,  however,  was  there 
any  uncertainty  about  the  immediate  tide  of  battle. 
That  swept  straight  toward  Harvard's  goal.  With 
the  highest  perfection  of  manoeuvre  Yale  had  fought 
its  way  down  the  field.  The  "tackles-back"  was 
working  to  perfection  and  had  hammered  ahead  for 
rarely  less  than  five  yards  at  a  time.  Now  another 
crash  through  the  centre  and  a  touchdown  appeared 


250  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

inevitable.  The  Harvard  eleven  was  lined  up  two 
yards  directly  in  front  of  its  goal-posts.  Haley 
was  at  the  back  imploring  his  men  to  hold.  And 
just  then  Kean  fumbled  and  Cleblamp  fell  on  the 
ball. 

A  more  intense  reaction  it  is  impossible  to  imagine. 
Dick  sprang  to  his  feet,  hugged  tight  by  the  substitute 
at  his  elbow,  and  neither  of  them  heard  the  great 
shout  that  was  led  off  by  Leverett  Kendall,  once 
Harvard's  famous  runner,  just  behind  them. 

The  Crimson  naturally  tried  to  punt  out  of  danger, 
but  the  kick  fell  short  and  the  ball  went  out  of  bounds 
at  the  twenty-five  yard  line.  Jarvis  could  see  that 
his  team  was  "  rattled."  Yale  gathered  herself  to- 
gether and,  although  a  mob  of  Harvard  tackles 
were  on  every  Blue  man  who  carried  the  ball,  it  was 
hammer  and  smash  down  the  field  again  until  the 
New  Haven  eleven  was  but  five  yards  from  Harvard's 
final  line. 

"  Oh,  you  dare  n't  let  'em  !  You  dare  n't  let  'em  !  " 
screamed  Haley,  white  as  a  ghost  and  wet  from  head 
to  foot. 

Was  the  former  drama  to  be  repeated?  If  any- 
thing on  earth  could  have  stopped  the  Yale  backs, 
the  Crimson  line  would  have  done  so,  but  every 
Harvard  effort  seemed  predestined  to  futility.  The 
hearts  of  the  Cambridge  supporters  stood  still. 
Again,  but  foot  by  foot  now,  the  enemy  was  pushing 


AN  ATHLETIC   TRAGEDY.  251 

its  way  toward  victory.  Vail  banged  through  right 
guard  and  brought  the  ball  to  within  ten  inches  of  the 
line.  The  Crimson  men  almost  gripped  the  goal 
posts.  The  Yale  stand  was  yelling  like  mad.  Down 
an  aisle,  late  in  arriving,  the  Harvard  band  marched 
playing  "  Up  the  Street."  "  Hold  'em  !  Hold  'em  !  " 
screamed  the  Harvard  crowd.  "  Touchdown !  "  de- 
manded the  men  of  Yale.  Jarvis  bit  his  lips  until 
they  bled.  The  coaches  were  acting  like  maniacs. 
Willis,  the  old  centre,  who  had  scarcely  missed  a 
day  on  Soldiers'  Field,  was  walking  nervously  down 
the  lines  with  quick,  short  strides,  his  head  thrust 
forward,  intent  not  to  lose  one  movement  of  the  play. 
Macy,  the  former  guard,  was  kneeling  with  Worth- 
ington  at  the  extreme  corner  of  the  field. 

Then  Broelom  was  thrown  into  the  Crimson  line 
and  when  the  heap  was  separated  he  was  found 
safely  beyond  the  posts.  An  easy  goal  was  kicked 
and  Yale  had  scored  her  first  six  points. 

"  Well,  it 's  early  yet,"  gasped  Jarvis,  as  he  sank 
back  upon  the  bench.  "They've  only  played  ten 
minutes  and  we  have  n't  had  a  chance  to  show  them 
what  we  can  do  with  the  ball." 

That  chance,  such  as  it  was,  came  soon  enough. 
Stendhal,  the  Harvard  right  half-back,  kicked  and  the 
Yale  team  raced  down  the  field,  bowling  over  the  Crim- 
son players  as  if  with  no  effort  whatever.  The 
runner  had  made  twenty  yards  when  Bardnar,  the 


252  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

heavy  Harvard  guard,  threw  him  so  cleanly  over  his 
head  that  Jarvis  thought  he  would  never  rise  again. 
He  did,  but  a  double  pass  failed  and  there  was  a 
"  throw  for  loss."  Then  Harvard  "  braced ;  "  held 
like  a  breakwater.  Yale  punted  and  Haley  caught 
only  to  be  downed  in  his  tracks  as  hd  stood  on  the 
Blue's  fifty-three  yard  line. 

Here  was  the  chance.  The  Crimson's  interference 
formed  and  was  off  like  a  rocket  around  the  end. 
But  Gaswin  wa*s  crowded  and  forced  to  run  to  the 
side  so  that  when  he  was  downed  he  had  gained  only 
two  yards.  Jarvis,  who  could  plainly  hear  the  signals 
and  thus  knew  the  play  before  it  was  in  operation, 
listened  spellbound.  Again  Gaswin  was  tried  and 
this  time  made  three  yards.  Then  the  order  was 
given  —  Dick  could  not  guess  why  —  for  an  attempt 
at  the  centre.  The  best  "  line  bucker  "  made  the 
charge,  but  it  was  against  a  stone  wall.  The  Harvard 
backs  were  pushing,  the  guards  were  all  tugging,  yet 
in  vain. 

"  Fourth  down ;   three  yards  to  gain  !  " 

There  was  a  kick,  of  course.  Kean  almost  muffed 
the  ball  on  the  catch,  but  he  got  it  fast  just  as  Howell 
plunged  for  it  on  the  six  yard  line. 

Harvard  expected  a  return  punt  and  the  backs  ran 
out,  but  Yale  went  right  at  the  line  as  before.  There 
was  a  series  of  slight  gains.  Then  again  it  appeared 
to  Jarvis  that  his  comrades  were  "  bracing,"  but  finally 


AN  ATHLETIC   TRAGEDY.  253 

the  story  already  old  was  once  more  begun  and  the 
tackles'  play  with  a  delayed  pass  or  two  worked  the 
ball  back  beyond  the  centre  of  the  field. 

A  Harvard  crowd  never  cheered  as  on  that  day  — 
not  even  when  on  this  very  field  they  had  seen  their 
eleven  beat  the  Blue  seventeen  to  nothing  and  had 
chanted  the  score  from  the  Yale  Fence.  It  was  a 
splendid  exhibition  of  loyalty.  They  began  before 
the  game  and  kept  it  up  until  the  last  train  left.  But 
just  now,  though  they  were  at  it  as  heartily  as  ever, 
they  were  plainly  desperate. 

Down  the  field  went  Yale,  a  few  yards  at  a  time. 
They  had  to  fight  for  every  inch,  but  the  Harvard 
line  was  like  a  fort  that  crumbles  before  a  withering 
cannonade.  Jarvis  was  wild  to  help.  He  knew  the 
superiority  of  the  men  on  the  field,  yet  he  could  not 
but  feel  that  he  must  be  with  them. 

Finally  Harvard  got  the  ball  for  holding,  after  their 
rivals  had  carried  it  continuously  for  seventy-two 
yards.  There  was  an  immediate  kick  —  a  puzzle. 
The  Harvard  ends  were  down  upon  Chawdick,  who 
should  have  caught  it.  The  leather  swept  untouched 
between  his  arms  and  before  anybody  knew  what  had 
happened  Kniff,  the  Yale  quarter,  scooped  it  in  and 
was  off  like  a  fox  for  cover. 

He  had  scarcely  any  interference,  but  he  dashed 
and  ducked  and  dodged  and  plunged,  now  this  way 
and  now  that,  yet  ever  ahead,  in  one  of  the  most  re- 


254  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

markable  exhibitions  of  individual  playing  ever  seen 
on  a  football  field.  One  Harvard  man  after  another 
clutched  or  dived  wildly  at  him,  missed  and  fell. 
Only  Haley  came  near  to  him,  but  the  handicap  was 
far  too  great  and,  after  a  brilliant  run  of  sixty  yards, 
Yale  had  scored  once  more. 

All  the  regular  leaders  of  Harvard's  cheering  were 
crying  that  this  was  a  "  fluke "  and  that  the  yells 
should  keep  on.  They  did  keep  on.  They  would 
have  done  so  on  that  day  even  without  the  urging  of 
Key  and  Doyen  who  had  each  saved  a  day  at  Spring- 
field, or  of  Dr.  Ruisseaux  who  had  captained  his 
'Varsity  eleven  in  the  long  ago. 

But  their  shouting  did  small  good.  After  the  goal 
and  kick-off  Yale  gained  a  little  and  then  Harvard 
held  and  got  the  ball  on  downs  for  the  first  and  only 
time.  Cell  was  taken  out  and  Beetnurt  took  his  place 
at  guard.  There  was  an  exchange  of  punts  and  then 
Harvard  was  again  stopped  and  the  half  ended  with 
Yale's  ball  on  her  thirty-five  yard  line. 

Blankets  were  thrown  about  the  players  and  the 
whole  Crimson  squad  hurried  to  its  tent.  There 
not  a  voice  was  raised  for  a  time,  and  only  the 
laboured  breathing  of  the  men  mingled  with  the  cries 
of  the  crowds  outside. 

The  rubbers  were  hard  at  their  work  when  one 
bleeding  giant  asked  hoarsely  for  a  knife  and  solemnly 
ripped  the  big  H  from  his  sweater. 


AN  ATHLETIC   TRAGEDY. 

"  What  are  you  doing  there  ? "  shouted  an  irate 
coach,  and  the  player  burst  into  tears. 

To  those  who  do  not  understand  this  class  of  men 
the  importance  it  attaches  to  a  symbol  actually  so 
trivial  is  impossible  of  explanation ;  to  those  who  do 
understand  it  explanation  is  unnecessary.  Suffice  it 
that  in  this  case  the  incident  was  one  of  those  coups 
de  thedtre  which  never  fail  of  their  effect  and  in  the 
reaction  the  men  were  readier  to  listen  to  the  hopeful 
instructions  of  their  directors. 

The  truth  is  that  had  Harvard  been  in  the  pink 
of  condition  and  got  the  "  jump  "  that  had  been  hoped 
for,  Yale  would  still  have  been  victorious  for  the 
simple  reason  that  it  had  one  of  the  best  teams  that 
ever  played  football.  As  things  were,  defeat  was 
bound  to  be  almost  extermination.  By  being  per- 
fectly trained  and  by  using  a  new  formation,  though 
very  like  one  much  in  vogue  at  Cambridge  a  few 
years  before,  Yale  completely  outwitted  and  outplayed 
the  Harvard  team.  But  between  halves  it  is  the 
whole  duty  of  coaches  to  cheer  their  worsted  men  and 
the  Crimson  ones  did  this  so  well  that  many  of  the 
substitutes  at  least  resolved,  with  Jarvis,  not  to  count 
the  game  lost  until  Yale  scored  again. 

That  did  not  take  long.  The  teams  lined  up  as 
they  had  been  before.  Harvard  kicked  beyond  Yale's 
goal  and  Yale  punted  out.  Little  Haley  made  a 
pretty  run,  but  it  was  clear  that  he  was,  physically, 


256  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

fast  going  to  pieces.  Harvard  was  quick  but  weak 
The  ball  was  lost  and  again  the  "  tackles-back  "  began 
its  dreadful  work. 

For  Jarvis  that  formation  had  all  the  fascination 
that  a  snake  has  for  the  bird  it  is  about  to  devour. 
He  looked  for  a  while  spellbound.  Then  there  was  an 
open  play  and  break  for  Harvard's  goal.  He  put  his 
head  in  his  hands  and  hid  his  eyes.  He  heard  the 
increased  Yale  yell  as  the  touchdown  was  made ;  he 
heard  the  thump  of  the  punting  that  followed.  An- 
other series  of  rapid  plays  and  again  Yale  neared  the 
Harvard  line.  Then  came  a  little  pause. 

Somebody  was  hurt.  A  small  knot  gathered 
around  the  fallen  man.  Dr.  Sewell,  of  the  "  Hospital 
Brigade,"  ran  out  with  his  satchel;  some  one  else 
brought  a  bucket,  and  one  of  the  exhausted  players 
took  the  head  of  the  wounded  man  into  his  lap,  while 
others,  apparently  regardless  of  their  fallen  comrade 
and  certainly  careless  of  themselves,  dropped  panting 
on  the  chilly  turf. 

Jarvis  looked  again.  It  was  a  Harvard  man,  sure 
enough.  A  glad,  selfish  hope  burst  up  in  him.  The 
next  moment  his  name  was  called  and,  slipping  off* 
his  sweater  as  he  ran,  he  made  for  the  centre  of  the 
field  to  take  the  disabled  Howell's  place. 

He  heard  the  nine  "  Rahs  "  ending  with  his  name 
and  glowed  with  pride.  He  heard  the  whistle  blow 
and  stooped  low  in  his  place.  Then  he  was  knocked 


AN  ATHLETIC   TRAGEDY.  257 

down,  his  head  striking  the  frozen  ground.  There 
was  a  hideous  roar  of  passing  feet,  one  of  which 
kicked  him  in  the  face  as  it  passed  over  him. 

He  picked  himself  up,  dazed  and  bewildered.  The 
air  was  slowly  rocking  to  and  fro  with  the  shouts  of 
the  onlookers.  He  saw  his  comrades  in  arms  strug- 
gling toward  the  goal-posts.  Yale  had  scored  and 
around  his  end. 

The  lesson  had  been  well  learned.  A  great  rage 
boiled  in  him,  but  left  his  head  clear  and  his  sight 
keen,  while  it  banished  all  fear  and  redoubled  his 
strength.  For  a  few  minutes  after  the  line-up  and 
the  desultory  punting  that  followed  it,  he  missed  the 
signals  when  Harvard  had  the  ball  and  once  failed  to 
assist  in  opening  a  way  at  tackle  so  that  Haley  could 
not  get  through  with  the  ball  and  his  direct  opponent 
gave  him  an  ugly  elbow-blow  that  nearly  closed  his 
eye.  After  that,  however,  he  had  himself  completely 
in  hand  and  when  the  signal  came  for  Haley  to  try 
again,  this  time  around  Jarvis'  end,  Dick  easily 
tumbled  his  man  upon  the  ground  with  a  force  cal- 
culated to  leave  him  there  for  a  while  and,  rushing 
ahead,  helped  to  gain  Harvard  a  hard  three  yards. 

But  that  was  the  last  of  Haley.  He  had  literally 
to  be  dragged  from  the  field,  weeping  and  protesting 
that  he  was  fit  to  play,  but  palpably  in  a  state 
verging  upon  nervous  collapse.  "  Now  is  the  end," 
thought  Jarvis.  Yet  Enckiff,  who  took  Haley's  place, 

17 


2$8  JARVIS   OF  .HARVARD. 

put,  for  a  few  moments,  a  new  life  into  the  team. 
Still  the  men  were  rapidly  giving  out.  Indeed,  the 
Crimson  casualties  were  appalling,  and  in  a  few  min- 
utes there  were  only  three  men  on  the  eleven  who 
had  been  there  at  the  start  of  the  game,  while  three 
changes  had  been  made  in  one  position. 

None  the  less,  Harvard  was  taking  her  final  "  brace." 
There  was  a  return  of  punts  which  left  the  Crimson 
with  the  ball  near  their  fifty-yard  line.  Then  came 
a  signal  that  gladdened  Jarvis'  heart.  He  flung  his 
opponent  toward  the  centre.  The  Harvard  inter- 
ference rushed  to  the  left,  attracting  thither  all  the 
Yale  forwards.  Enckiff,  one  of  the  fleetest  runners 
of  the  Harvard  eleven,  skirted  Jarvis'  end  at  the 
opposite  extremity  and  was  off  like  a  frightened 
deer. 

It  was  an  old  piece  of  strategy  and  one  that  the 
Blue  had  itself  often  used  with  more  or  less  effect 
against  other  teams,  but  so  far  as  the  forwards  were 
concerned,  it  had  worked  beautifully.  Yet  the  run- 
ner was  now  quite  without  assistance,  three  Yale 
backs  were  close  at  his  heels,  and  just  ahead  of  him 
Vail,  the  surest  tackle  on  the  opposing  team,  had 
somehow  appeared  and  was  crouching  for  a  spring. 

Jarvis  followed  fiercely  in  the  rear.  He  pushed 
one  pursuer  violently  aside;  he  tripped  another  in 
full  course.  He  saw  Enckiff  dodge  Kay,  Nalsit, 
Broelom,  and  Captain  Smith.  He  saw  him  distancing 


AN  ATHLETIC   TRAGEDY.  259 

the  rest.  He  saw  Vail  leap.  He  saw  the  runner 
dodge  nimbly  to  the  side.  Then  there  was  a  flash 
from  the  right  and  a  Yale  back  had  saved  the  goal. 

But  it  was  a  clear  gain  of  sixteen  yards  and  far 
away  somewhere  the  Harvard  stand  was  going  mad 
again. 

EnckifT  was  hurt,  but  Tom  McCuen,  the  trainer, 
had  him  on  his  feet  in  a  few  seconds  and  to  such 
good  purpose  that  Yale,  when  it  finally  got  the  ball, 
was  forced  to  kick. 

That,  however,  was  indeed  the  end.  Again  the 
Blue  got  the  pigskin  and  again  the  "  tackles-back  " 
was  mercilessly  hurled  against  the  Crimson  line. 
Time  after  time  the  Harvard  ranks  gave  way  before 
it.  Resistance  seemed  impossible.  Nothing  could 
stop  that  cannonade  of  humanity  that  was  poured 
against  the  centre  time  after  time  with  the  unvarying 
shock  and  irresistible  force  of  round-shot. 

Jarvis,  in  a  white  rage,  was  playing  with  all  the 
brilliance  of  desperation  and  the  crowds  were  signi- 
fying their  approval  of  him.  On  top  or  underneath 
he  was  in  every  play.  His  quick  eye  caught  the 
direction  of  every  attack  and  his  body  obeyed  on  the 
instant.  He  was  doing  half  the  tackling  and  tossing 
down  his  victims  with  a  fierceness  that  was  warranted 
only  by  the  utter  abrogation  of  his  reason. 

It  was  all  in  vain.  He  was  driven  nearly  wild  by 
the  sense  that,  if  he  could  strain  his  strength  just  one 


260  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

hair's  breadth  more,  something  might  still  be  done. 
But  the  line  was  driven  slowly  back;  the  tense, 
drawn  faces,  some  purple,  some  white,  with  staring 
eyes  half  blinded  by  blood  and  sweat,  gradually 
assumed  the  look  that  must  have  shone  from  those  of 
the  five  hundred  Persians  in  the  last  stand  at  the  cita- 
del of  Petra. 

Yet  to  Jarvis  fate  was  not  altogether  unkind,  for  in 
the  midst  of  all  this  he  made  a  dive  at  the  heels  of 
a  runner  and,  though  he  stopped  his  man,  paid  for 
his  success  by  a  few  minutes  of  unconsciousness  pro- 
duced by  a  blow  from  a  leather  clamped  heel  that  left 
him  in  a  semi-dazed  condition  in  which  he  was  at  last 
led  from  the  field,  fighting  to  remain. 

Twenty-eight  to  nothing.  Five  minutes  later  the 
game  was  over.  The  Harvard  crowd  was  still  cheer- 
ing ;  the  Yale  players  were  being  carried  away  on  the 
shoulders  of  their  friends ;  the  New  Haven  men  were 
dancing  over  the  field  behind  their  band ; —  the 
greatest  tragedy  in  College  athletics  was  at  an  end. 
Yale  men  marched  all  the  way  to  town,  hundreds  of 
them.  They  counted  the  score;  they  yelled;  they 
sang;  they  tore  the  scaffolding  from  Fayerweather 
Hall  and  around  the  bonfire  they  recited  their  ancient 
liturgy : 

"Who  lit  that  fire?" 

"  Whichkiss,  he  lit  that  fire !  " 

"Who  is  Whichkiss?" 


AN  ATHLETIC  TRAGEDY.  261 

"  Whichkiss,  he  is  the  King  of  Glory !  " 
But  what  of  the  plucky  men  who  had  gone  down  so 
bravely  to  defeat?     They  felt  now  all  that  their  Penn- 
sylvania rivals  had  felt  but  a  couple  of  weeks  before. 
Philosophy  can  harden  us  to  the  death  of  those  we 
love ;   it  may  even,  in  certain  contingencies,  assist  us 
to  bear   the  loss  of  fortune,  but  there  is  no  moral 
courage  that  can  stiffen  a  man's  backbone  under  the 
most  certainly   anticipated  defeat  at  football,  especi- 
ally if  that  defeat  comes  at  the  end  of  a  season.     As 
the    final   whistle    had    blown,    Jarvis   for  a  moment 
stood    upon   the    side-lines    perfectly   still.     He   was 
himself  again,  but  unable   to   grasp   what  had   hap- 
pened.    The  howling  of  the  black  mass  that  was  surg- 
ing from  the  stands  like  a  receding  tide  on  a  stormy 
night  seemed  far  away  and  dreamy.     He  could  not 
understand   that  the    last  chance  was  forever  gone. 
He  only  knew  that  he  wanted  to  get  away ;  to  hide, 
and  above  all  not  to  face  Peggy  for  days  and  days. 
The  sod  slowly  rose  and  fell  before  him,  like  the  deck 
of  a  ship  in  a  heavy  ground-swell.     Then  some  one, 
in  consolation,  put  an  arm  over  his  shoulder,  and  he 
broke  into  convulsive,  childish  sobs. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 
THE   PRICE   OF   DEFEAT. 

JARVIS  was  to  have  a  few  days  in  which  to  recover 
from  the  effects  of  the  game,  and  he  had  elected  to 
spend  this  time  with  his  family  in  Philadelphia.  So 
sure  had  he  been  of  his  eleven's  success  and  the  con- 
sequent result  upon  himself,  that  he  had  no  fear  of  the 
city  in  which  Mary  Braddock  lived.  When  the  farce 
was  over,  when  the  hazard  was  lost,  he  hurried  to  his 
train  in  a  state  of  mental  collapse  that  put  voluntary 
action  out  of  the  question.  He  remained  in  the  same 
condition  all  the  way  home,  and  spent  the  first  day 
lounging  about  the  house,  sore  in  body  and  broken 
in  spirit. 

It  is  impossible  to  make  clear,  save  to  those  who 
have  so  suffered,  just  how  keen  a  football  defeat  may 
prove.  The  game  is  only  a  game  and  its  loss  or  gain 
a  thing  that  will  be  forgotten  within  the  year.  But  to 
the  average  Undergraduate,  and  to  every  player,  it  is 
the  one  thing  of  momentary  and  paramount  impor- 
tance. The  latter  has  been  taught  to  look  forward  to 
it  as  such,  and  he  has  been  carefully  trained  to  reach 
the  height  of  physical  condition  on  just  that  final  day. 


THE  PRICE   OF  DEFEAT.  263 

Then  comes  the  unexpected,  and  the  sudden  revolution 
in  all  manners  and  forms  of  life.  The  player  is 
generally  himself  again  in  a  week  or  less,  but  for  that 
period  he  is  a  broken  creature,  as  weak  as  he  was 
formerly  strong. 

Jarvis  came  from  a  dinner  at  which  he  had  eaten 
nothing,  and  sat  moodily  at  the  library  fire.  So  much, 
it  seemed  had  gone  from  him.  In  a  way  that  he 
could  not  summon  his  faculties  to  explain  or  refute 
he  felt  that  he  would  have  to  begin  his  whole  course 
of  life.  He  was  thanking  his  stars  that  he  had  at 
least  nothing  to  take  him  away  from  the  morbid  con- 
templation of  this  prospect,  and  was  commencing  to 
lay  down  new  plans,  when  the  man  brought  in  a 
message  which  had  just  been  left  at  the  door. 

Some  informal  invitation,  of  course.  But  he  would 
not  accept  it.  He  tore  open  the  envelope,  signed  the 
paper  with  a  stump  of  pencil  in  a  hand  that  he  would 
never  have  recognized  for  his  own,  and,  absently,  tore 
open  the  missive  and  read : 

"  1 8  —  WALNUT  STREET. 

"  DEAR,  DEAR  DICK,  —  What  did  you  think  of  me  after 
our  last  meeting  ?  You  must  forgive  me  and  be  kind,  as  you 
have  always  been.  And  you  must  come  to  me  now,  for, 
Dick,  I  am  very  ill.  Just  how  ill  I  don't  know,  but  I  was 
never  sick  in  my  life  before  and  I  suppose  I  think  I  'm  worse 
now  than  I  really  am.  I  thought  I  was  dying.  The  doctor 
says  I  'm  not.  But  I  love  you  and  I  want  to  see  you.  You 


264  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

will  believe  me  now.  I  did  n't  want  to  be  a  weight  about 
your  neck,  but  that  last  time  I  did  n't  want  anybody  else  to 
be  one,  either.  Do  you  blame  me,  then,  when  I  thought  I 
saw  my  sacrifice  gone  for  nothing?  Don't  be  hard  on  me, 
Dick.  I  feel  so  badly.  Come  to  me  for  just  one  moment, 
to  hold  the  hand  and  kiss  the  lips,  for  old  love's  sake,  of  her 
who  will,  perhaps,  soon  be  unable  to  work  you  any  more 
harm.  M.  B. 

November  30,  1900." 

Not  until  he  had  quite  finished  reading  the  note 
did  Jarvis  fully  grasp  its  purport.  There  was  no  time 
for  debate.  The  dictates  of  common  humanity  per- 
mitted of  only  one  course  of  action.  Slow  as  he  was 
when  propelled  by  some  outside  force  in  arriving  at  a 
determination,  he  was  yet  quick  enough  to  obey  the 
commands  of  anybody  whom  he  considered  to  have  a 
claim  upon  him. 

And  Mary  Braddock  had  the  claim.  He  had  loved 
this  woman,  had  loved  her  before  any  other,  and  that 
only  a  short  year  ago.  Moreover,  however  disastrous 
had  been  the  results  of  that  primal  passion  to  him,  he 
now  realised  for  the  first  time  since  he  broke  with  her 
that  they  were  possibly,  if  not  indeed  actually,  even 
more  disastrous  to  her.  She  loved  him !  The  vision 
of  Saul  of  Tarsus  at  Damascus  could  scarcely  have 
been  more  tremendous  to  the  eyes  of  the  embryo 
apostle  to  the  Gentiles  than  was  this  hasty  confused 
letter  to  the  self-righteous  reprobate. 


THE   PRICE   OF  DEFEAT.  265 

It  was  a  walk  of  only  a  couple  of  blocks,  but  the 
night  had  already  fallen  when  he  set  out.  His  mind 
was  almost  a  blank  at  the  start,  but  in  the  sharp 
evening  air  it  soon  began  to  act  with  that  lightning 
speed  that  characterises  it  in  moments  of  intense 
excitement.  She  was  dying.  She  was  no  hysterical 
fool  to  deceive  herself,  and  there  was  a  calm  chord  in 
her  note  that,  in  spite  of  her  words,  seemed  to  speak 
of  a  medical  assurance  of  the  fact.  It  would  be  a 
terrible  thing  to  go  through  with,  but  he  must  do  it, 
he  must  obey  the  wish  that  was  to  be  her  last. 

Without  any  loss  of  sympathy  for  her  he  could 
hardly  help  but  give  some  thought  to  the  effect  of  her 
death  upon  himself.  He  was  young  and  had  life  before 
him.  He  had  already  —  up  to  the  time  of  the  game 
—  carried  out  successfully,  as  he  thought,  the  prelim- 
inary and  most  difficult  portion  of  his  plans  for  reha- 
bilitation. He  had  leaped  at  once  into  the  furnace  of 
action.  He  had  even  —  he  assuredly  recalled  — - 
thought  of  electing  mathematics  after  the  "  Mid- 
Years."  That  was  a  sufficient  proof  of  his  honesty 
of  purpose.  He  had  told  himself,  that  with  fresh 
blood  in  his  veins,  with  hard  muscles,  rigid  train- 
ing, and  constant  physical  exertion,  moral  weakness 
would  be  impossible. 

He  had  found  this  true.  He  was  no  longer,  he  said, 
that  Richard  Jarvis  who  had  first  listened  to  the 
"  Traume  "  twelve  months  before.  Nevertheless  — 


266  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

he  had  to  admit  it  now  —  he  had,  since  their  last 
meeting,  feared  the  woman.  He  had  not  allowed 
himself  to  think  of  it;  he  had  perfect  reliance  upon 
himself;  and  yet  the  very  terror  of  that  ridiculous 
doctrine  she  had  then  broached  lent  to  it  something 
of  a  tangible  nature.  He  did  think  how  terrible  it 
was  to  wish  her  dead.  It  was  like  murder,  and  yet 
he  could  not  help  wishing  it.  With  that  hope  con- 
summated he  would  be  absolutely  free,  he  thought, 
with  his  life  in  his  own  hands  to  make  or  mar  again. 
The  past  must  die  with  her.  But  if  she  lived,  what 
then? 

What  we  are  is  generally  the  antithesis  of  what  we 
imagine  ourselves  to  be.  The  god  who,  in  the  nether 
realms,  can  show  us  ourselves  as  others  see  us,  or  as, 
psychically,  we  are,  remains  yet  to  be  found.  The 
world  sees  one  man ;  the  man  himself  another ;  and  the 
devils  of  the  air,  who  see  all  things,  know  him  to  be 
in  reality  a  third.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Jarvis,  hurry- 
ing along  Rittenhouse  Square,  was  weaker  than  he 
had  ever  been  before.  He  was  still  suffering  from  the 
results  of  the  game.  Like  all  hard-trained  athletes, 
he  was  good  only  until  the  climax  and,  that  climax 
once  passed,  and  the  game  lost,  he  was  very  close  to 
positive  hysteria. 

By  overestimating  the  effect  of  the  body  on  the 
mind,  he  had  confused,  well-nigh  hopelessly,  the  idea 
of  a  spiritual  and  mental  with  that  of  a  physical  re- 


THE   PRICE   OF  DEFEAT.  267 

formation.  Completely  unstrung,  he  needed  but  little 
to  make  him  carry  his  confused  sophistry  to  its  logical 
conclusion,  and  confound  the  defeat  at  football  with 
a  defeat  of  that  higher  endeavour  for  which  its  pre- 
paration had  been  but  a  means.  Although  he  did 
not  guess  it,  he  was  very  close  to  feeling  that  every- 
thing was  lost.  It  required  only  a  slight  shock  to 
convince  him  of  the  uselessness  of  effort.  He  was  in 
a  bad  condition.  His  training  had  been  far  too  long 
and  too  severe.  In  the  language  of  the  game,  he  was 
"  stale."  Already,  unknown  to  him,  the  pent-up 
desires  that  he  had  for  so  long  permitted  to  master 
him,  were  filing  at  their  chains.  The  period  of  absti- 
nence had  served  only  to  sharpen  the  appetite  and 
weaken  the  power  to  resist.  It  had  not  yet  been  long 
enough  supreme  to  establish  itself  as  a  habit.  The 
dam  was  ready  to  burst. 

His  father  and  mother  had  gone  out,  —  heaven 
knows  where,  for  it  was  Sunday  and  his  first  night  at 
home,  —  and  he  had  oddly  begun  to  wish  them  with 
him.  Had  it  been  so  this  story  need  probably  never 
have  been  written.  One  chance  caress  from  his 
mother ;  one  trace  of  the  real  though  awkward  affec- 
tion that  his  father  certainly  felt  for  him ;  some  little 
reminiscence  of  his  childhood,  —  a  boyish  trait  recalled 
or  a  baby  phrase  repeated,  —  might  have  changed  the 
whole  course  of  his  life.  But  Fate  had  not  so  decreed. 
The  thing  which  we  are  is  too  powerful  for  us,  and 


268  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

weakness  ruling  has  a  strength  herculean.  The 
na*neless  forces  that  make  for  our  destruction  were 
at  work  against  Jarvis.  Already  the  current  had  set 
in  strong  for  the  rocks,  and  no  ship  of  rescue,  even 
no  warning  though  useless  buoy,  was  at  hand. 

In  a  few  minutes  he  stood  before  the  house. 
Would  there  be  any  sign  of  death?  he  had  almost 
breathlessly  wondered.  The  place  appeared  so  very 
still  and  solemn. 

His  hand  shook  as  he  rang  the  bell,  and  it  seemed 
an  hour  before  the  man  came  to  the  door.  To  his 
excited  imagination,  the  servant  was  speaking  in  those 
low  tones  that  the  presence  of  the  Great  White  King 
demands. 

"  Can  I  see  Miss  Braddock?" 

He  never  thought  of  sending  up  a  card.  But  the 
man  knew  him. 

"I'll  see,  Mr.  *  Jarvis.  Walk  into  the  reception 
room." 

"  I  '11  wait  in  the  library,"  said  Dick,  in  an  awed 
tone,  that  made  the  servant  stare  at  him  strangely. 

A  queer,  half  morbid  impulse  drove  him  into  that 
room,  already  indelibly  imprinted  on  his  memory  for 
all  time.  He  knew  every  corner  of  it,  every  picture 
on  the  wall,  every  figure  of  the  rugs.  But  the  dim 
lighted  actuality  called  up  even  more  strongly  sou- 
venirs that  were  in  no  wise  pleasant. 

As  on  that  other  night,  only  the  syren  piano  lamp 


THE   PRICE   OF   DEFEAT.  269 

was  lighted,  and,  as  then,  a  soft  twilight,  now  full  of 
strange  memories,  enveloped  everything.  The  heavy 
curtains  in  the  doorway,  the  golden  sconces  bearing 
their  extinguished  tapers,  the  black  blotches  that  were 
paintings  in  cumbersome  gilt  frames,  all  receded  into 
the  general  gloom,  or  had  their  elaborate  outlines 
softened  by  the  pervading  shade.  Instead  of  seeing, 
one  was  rather  merely  conscious  of  the  hybrid  fur- 
niture of  the  room,  —  the  misshapen  tete-a-tetes ;  the 
deformed  ottomans;  the  frail,  misbegotten  gilded 
chairs,  the  pale  silk  coverings  which  pictured  libellous 
reproductions  of  Kneller;  and  the  square,  comfort- 
able fauteuils  formed  after  the  fashion  of  the  First 
Empire.  Dark  shadows  stretched  long  arms  to  em- 
brace the  rugs  of  tiger  and  bear  skin  with  their  snarl- 
ing muzzles  and  vitreous,  artificial  eyes,  that  seemed 
to  spring  out  from  the  shades  of  their  native  forests, 
while  the  carpets  of  old  Persian  weaving  lay  colour- 
less, their  glowing  patterns  lost  in  the  enfolding  dark- 
ness. 

He  waited,  he  thought,  a  long  time,  but  the  man 
did  not  return.  He  became  painfully  aware  of  every 
sound  in  the  street,  but  on  the  house  itself  there 
seemed  to  rest  the  even  more  painful  silence  of  death. 
Then  there  was  a  slight  rustle  and  swish  on  the  stairs, 
followed  by  a  light  footfall  he  knew  only  too  well. 

His  heart  dashed  against  his  ribs.  He  could  not 
draw  his  breath. 


2/0  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

The  portieres  were  drawn  back.  Mary  Braddock 
stood  in  the  red  light  at  the  doorway. 

He  sprang  to  his  feet. 

"  You  !  "  he  cried. 

He  fixed  his  startled,  angry  gaze  upon  her,  but  she 
was  unmoved.  For  seconds  they  stood  there,  he  grip- 
ping the  back  of  his  chair;  she  a  motionless  figure  in 
the  dim  light,  one  arm  holding  back  the  curtain. 

Finally  she  laughed  a  little  contritely. 

"Yes,  it  is  I.     Didn't  you  ask  for  me?" 

And  she  came  forward  with  extended  hands. 

"  Don't  be  afraid,  I  'm  no  ghost,"  she  said,  smiling. 

He  kept  his  hand  by  his  side ;  then  his  glance 
met  hers  and  slowly,  irresistibly  he  raised  his  own  to 
meet  her  hand. 

The  next  moment  he  cursed  his  weakness  and  rallied 
a  little. 

"  You  Ve  recovered  rapidly,"  he  said,  blightingly. 

"Thank  you,  yes.  —  Sit  down." 

He  could  not  but  obey  her.  He  sank  into  a  low 
chair.  She  sat  negligently  by  him  on  a  heavily  up- 
holstered divan,  which  placed  her  a  little  higher  than 
he  was.  At  his  other  hand  —  his  right,  he  remem- 
bered afterwards  — was  a  small  table,  curiously  inlaid 
with  mother-of-pearl,  so  small  indeed  that  the  top 
was  half  hidden  by  an  open  magazine,  the  leaves  of 
which  were  held  in  place  by  a  paper-cutter,  a  keen 
miniature  dagger,  gleaming  in  the  red  lamplight. 


THE   PRICE   OF   DEFEAT.  2/1 

His  amazement  was  giving  place  to  fear.  He  was 
beset  by  his  old  alarm.  He  could  look  at  her  only 
from  beneath  his  lowered  lids,  fringed  with  their  long 
curling  lashes. 

She  was  beautiful.  He  had  never  seen  a  gown  so 
wonderfully  as  this  black  one,  enhance  the  statuesque, 
almost  heavy  shoulders,  or  the  symmetrical  white 
neck  that,  rising  so  straight  from  the  low-cut  bodice, 
appeared  quite  too  slight  to  hold  the  great  knot  of 
black  hair  that  fell  along  and  upon  it.  Her  arms 
were  covered,  but  not  concealed,  by  a  filmy,  trans- 
parent sleeve,  crimped  and  puckered  in  a  thousand 
alluring  dimples.  Her  figure  he  had  never  seen  to 
better  advantage,  and  the  red  lips  and  big  dark  eyes 
shone  in  brilliant  contrast  to  a  complexion  of  the 
purest  white  rose  and  pink. 

Upon  her  story  of  her  solitude  in  the  house,  he  cut 
in  with  a  rudeness  whereby  alone  he  was  able  to  mask 
his  weakness. 

"Well,  what  do  you  want  with  me?" 

"Don't  you  know?"  she  asked,  bending  forward 
until  he  felt  her  breath  upon  his  face.  "  I  love 
you  —  " 

"  So  you  said  in  your  note." 

"  I  had  to  see  you  when  you  were  so  near,  and  I 
knew  you  would  n't  come  unless  I  gave  some  extra- 
ordinary reason.  Dick  — 

"Then  the  whole  thing  was,  of  course,  a  lie?" 


2/2  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

He  dared  not  meet  her  gaze,  but  he  looked  at  her 
again.  She  was  indeed  splendid. 

"  If  you  want  to  call  it  that,"  she  admitted. 

"The  whole  thing?" 

"  If  you  want  to  call  it  that.  But,  Dick,  I  surely 
don't  ask  too  much."  She  put  her  hand  upon  his. 
"Dick  —  " 

He  drew  back  hastily. 

"  Go  'way  from  me  !  "  he  cried. 

She  understood  his  anger.  She  had  been  prepared 
for  that.  But  his  extreme  fear  maddened  her,  and 
she  did  not  withdraw  the  fingers  that  had  caught  his 
sleeve. 

"  Have  n't  you  any  blood  in  your  veins  ? "  she 
asked.  "  Don't  you  know  what  it  is  to  love  as  I 
love  you?" 

"  I  had  imagined  your  affections  were  only  as  in- 
tense as  they  were  permanent." 

"  Chivalry,  evidently,  does  n't  attract  me,  anyhow. 
Put  yourself  in  my  place.  But  no,  you  can't  do  that. 
Yet  I  should  think  you'd  know  that  if  it  had  been 
true  —  what  I  said  in  that  note  —  I  'd  have  behaved 
exactly  as  I  said  I  did." 

To  her  mind  this  was  ample  justification. 

Jarvis,  however,  could  not  see.  it  that  way. 

"  If  I  Ve  no  blood  in  my  veins,  you  Ve  no  reason  in 
your  head !  "  he  cried.  "  No  woman  has  much,  I 
suppose,  but  you  have  less  than  any  woman  I  ever 


THE   PRICE  OF  DEFEAT.  273 

knew.     You  Ve  got  me  here  by  a  lie,  and  now  you 
attempt  such  a  defense  as  that !  " 

She  had  completely  regained  her  composure. 

"  No,  I  'm  not  different  from  other  women.  On  the 
contrary,  I  'm  typical  —  almost  commonplace,  indeed. 
It's  depressing.  I  wish  I  wasn't,  but  I  am." 

"  That 's  encouraging  for  a  young  man  just  forming 
his  views  of  life." 

Just  as  in  their  last  interview,  he  was  trying  desper- 
ately to  be  sarcastic,  but  he  felt  his  terror  growing  mo- 
mentarily. 

"Isn't  it?"  she  replied.  "  But  at  any  rate,  I'm 
not  a  pervert.  You  are.  Not  in  the  vulgar  sense, 
but  in  the  opposite  extreme  of  sentimentality  you  're 
just  as  absolutely  so.  I  'm  natural  at  all  events." 

"  As  the  rest  of  the  lower  animals  —  yes." 

She  laughed  again,  a  low,  wise  laugh. 

"Thank  you.  However,  you  are  wrong,  as  usual. 
I  'm  natural  only  as  a  selfish  woman  who  loves  you. 
Yes,  I  do.  All  love  is  selfish,  but  mine  is  not  so  much 
so  as  your  cousin's  is,  or  would  be  — 

"Don't  name  her  !     How  dare  you?" 

"  How  dare  you  ?  Oh,  throw  away  your  chances, 
bury  your  talent,  damn  opportunities,  if  you  like ! 
After  all,  I  Ve  nothing  to  say  to  that  But  I  have 
one  claim  upon  you ;  I  do  own  a  little  of  you,  as  I 
explained  the  last  time  we  met,  and  what  is  mine  I 
mean  to  have  —  no  more." 

18 


2/4  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

She  was  looking  at  him  as  Semiramis  must  have 
looked  on  a  comely,  new-bought  slave. 

He  shivered. 

"  Throw  away  my  talents  !  "  he  said.  "  You  'd  have 
me  throw  away  my  soul !  " 

"  That 's  a  matter  of  opinion,  and  I  know  your 
opinion  is  mine  —  unless  you  Ve  changed  yours  very 
radically  of  late.  You  don't  believe  you  have  a  soul 
any  more  than  you  believe  I  have." 

"  I  hope  you  have." 

"And  that  all  the  traditions  of  hell  are  correct? 
I  comprehend.  Unfortunately,  we  are  still  in  the 
body  and  likely  to  remain  so  for  some  time.  Mean- 
while, we  have  to  consult  it." 

"Well?" 

"  You  know  you  're  not  the  one  to  marry." 

"  You  mean  I  'm  inconstant?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  That  comes  well  from  you !  How  do  you  de- 
scribe yourself  ?  " 

"  On  the  contrary,  I  speak  as  one  having  authority 
and  not  as  the  scribes,  —  from  experience,  perhaps, 
but  with  authority  anyhow.  You  can't  bear  restraint. 
The  moment  any  restraint  is  put  upon  you,  you  begin 
to  rebel.  So  do  I.  You  're  doing  it  now.  You  can't 
help  it  any  more  than  you  can  help  the  colour  of 
your  hair,  or,  by  thought,  add  a  cubit  to  your 


THE   PRICE  OF  DEFEAT.  2/5 

He  had  to  admit  to  himself  the  real  truth  of  what 
she  said,  and  he  began  to  tremble  more  and  more  at 
the  way  this  woman  read  him. 

"  You  'd  get  tired  of  your  wife  if  she  were  an  angel 
or  a  Venus,"  she  continued.  "You  might  keep  on 
being  kind  to  her  —  although  I  can't  say  that  from 
experience  —  but  you  would  cease  to  love  her,  and 
the  woman  who  is  not  loved  by  her  husband  is  sure 
to  be  loved  by  some  one  else.  And  I  need  n't  repeat 
what  would  become  of  your  ambitions  if  you  were  to 
marry  before  you  left  College." 

"  Ambition  is  insatiable,"  he  answered,  avoiding  the 
first  of  her  objections  and  taking  refuge  in  grandi- 
loquent commonplace.  "  It  drives  us  to  the  garner- 
ing and  then  tells  us  that  what  we  get  is  only  Dead 
Sea  fruit." 

"  Now  you  're  merely  talking  platitudes." 

"  The  term  is  a  synonym  for  truth." 

He  felt  he  could  not  maintain  this  front  much 
longer.  He  knew  that  she  saw  through  it  and,  more- 
over, conviction  was  slowly  stealing  over  him.  The 
woman's  doctrine  was  something  very  much  nearer 
the  truth  than  his  own. 

"  Nonsense,"  she  said.  "  Besides,  I  am  what  I  am, 
and,  as  I  said,  we  can  no  more  help  being  what  we 
are  than  we  can  help  being  at  all." 

A  short  silence  followed  her  words,  interrupted  by 
the  hum  of  life,  the  clang  and  rattle  of  passing  cars, 


2/6  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

even  the  shouts  and  cries  of  distant  Chestnut  Street. 
He  recalled  how  in  New  Haven  all  the  riff-raff  of  the 
town  must  even  still  be  celebrating  and  making 
capital  out  of  his  defeat.  He  had,  with  eyes  of 
innocence,  seen  the  like  often  enough  to  know  what 
it  was.  A  good-natured  crowd  sweeping  up  and 
down,  hurried  yet  aimless;  the  extra  policemen 
charging  an  unusually  obstreperous  gang  of  roughs 
who,  without  authority,  wore  the  blue  ;  hawkers  selling 
fish-horns  and  flags  of  the  winning  colours ;  women 
of  the  town ;  store-clerks ;  all  the  young  life  of  the 
city,  except  probably  the  student  life,  was  there. 
The  screaming  whistles,  the  cries  of  the  paper  mega- 
phones, the  shouts  and  yells  and  songs  —  they  seemed 
to  be  in  this  very  city,  as  he  had  known  them  of  old, 
and  at  this  very  moment  to  steal  into  the  quiet  room 
in  attenuated  echoes,  there  to  flutter  about  for  a 
while,  as  out  of  place  as  bats. 

Jarvis  laughed  unpleasantly. 

"What  is  it  amuses  you?"  she  asked,  almost 
sharply,  for  she  did  not  like  his  mirth. 

"  I  'm  thinking  that,  whipped  though  we  were,  to 
many  people  I  am  still  a  sort  of  hero ;  that  some  of 
them  envy  me." 

"  As  a  football-player  ?  Or  otherwise  ?  Why 
not?  Your  face  is  not  your  misfortune." 

Simonides  has  said  that  God  made  ten  kinds  of 
women,  one  kind  of  which  the  Greek  proceeds  to 


THE   PRICE  OF  DEFEAT.  2/7 

find  fairly  good.  Mary  Braddock  was  not  of  that 
exceptional  class.  But  she  was,  after  all,  little  worse 
than  selfish.  She  was  perfectly  logical  —  and  that,  at 
any  rate,  is  exceptional  —  and  was  therefore  resolved 
to  take  herself  as  she  found  herself.  She  believed 
every  one  of  her  pernicious  precepts  and  could  do  no 
less  than  stand  by  them.  But,  knowing  him  as  she 
did,  she  did  not  attempt  to  jeer  at  him. 

"  After  all,"  she  added,  "  they  're  right.  I  don't 
care  for  your  ability.  Properly  cultivated  and  with 
several  years  of  hard  labour,  you  might  be  able  to 
get  a  living  out  of  it  if  you  had  to ;  but  I  doubt  it. 
What  I  'm  in  love  with  is  that  peculiar  combination 
of  protoplasm  which,  instead  of  making  a  fungus  or 
an  anthropoid  ape,  produced  Richard  Jarvis." 

But  he  was  in  no  mood  to  bear  it.  He  was,  in  fact, 
at  bay.  He  felt  that  there  was  pursuing  him  a  fate 
more  inexorable  than  the  traditional  woman  scorned. 
There  was  no  running  away.  He  could  not  run  far 
enough  to  escape  it.  He  was  bound  to  her  by  the 
strongest  tie  which  can  bind  a  man  to  a  woman  — 
that  of  common  sin.  He  had  become  a  portion  of 
her,  a  part  more  integral  than  her  very  body.  He 
was  married  to  her  not  only  in  the  flesh  but  in  the 
spirit.  He  could  not  blame  her.  To  the  immutable 
power  of  an  ever  present  fact  she  was  as  much  a  slave 
as  he.  She  might  in  like  manner  be  another's,  but  he 
was  forever  hers.  He  felt  that  she  did  not  cross  his 


278  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD 

path  of  her  own  volition,  but  that  theirs  was  a  com- 
mon road  laid  out  by  an  unwavering  hand.  They 
were  insignificant  pawns  played  by  the  unswerving 
monster  for  whose  being  they  were  responsible. 

Yet  there  was  one  escape.  He  looked  at  her  and 
saw  in  her  only  the  gorgeous  Nemesis  of  his  life.  He 
had  come  there  expecting  to  be  free  and  quit  of 
her  and  had  succeeded  only  in  discovering  that 
ruin  was  inherent  in  him  through  her;  that  all  was 
lost ;  that  destruction  was  unavoidable  and  complete, 
unless  — 

His  roving  eye  was  arrested  by  a  glint  of  light  from 
the  table  at  his  right  hand.  It  was  the  little  paper- 
cutter,  keen  and  deadly  and  fascinating.  His  brain 
was  in  a  turmoil,  seething  to  the  boiling  point. 

He  could  not  have  told  what  were  his  thoughts  after 
his  eye  caught  the  gleam  of  that  slim  tongue  of  steel. 
But  stealthily,  silently,  he  reached  out  his  hand 
toward  it. 

His  fingers  closed  about  the  jewelled  hilt  and  he 
glanced  furtively  up  at  her. 

She  was  looking  at  him. 

"  Don't  be  silly,"  she  said,  in  a  strange  voice.  This 
is  real  life.  We  're  not  children  '  making  believe/ 
Dickie." 

She  rose  to  her  feet,  but  remained  perfectly  calm. 

Among  the  most  creditable  of  his  numerous  anti- 
pathies was  that  for  all  names  —  except  one  —  ending 


THE   PRICE   OF  DEFEAT.  2/9 

in  y  or  ie.  It  is  strange  how  such  small  things  will 
serve  to  put  the  finishing  touch  to  our  wrath  and  how 
what,  in  all  other  circumstances,  has  been  but  a  poor 
farce,  will  suffice  to  turn  the  balance  in  a  great  tragedy. 
Jarvis  thought  she  was  jeering  at  him  again  and  that 
in  so  doing  she  was  flaunting  her  power  for  evil  in 
his  face.  A  mad  mist  half  blinded  him,  but  through 
the  mist  he  seized  her  arm  below  the  elbow ;  brand- 
ished the  knife  above  his  head. 

He  felt  the  black  gauze  tear  in  his  hands.  His 
fingers  sank  into  the  soft  flesh.  He  marked  on  the 
heaving  white  breast  the  very  spot  for  the  blow. 
Then  he  looked  into  her  face,  and  saw  —  not  fear, 
not  hate,  not  rage  —  nothing  but  beauty  passionate. 

Her  hands  stole  about  his  neck.  They  touched 
his  face. 

The  next  instant  the  knife  fell  clanging  into  the 
grate  and  with  one  wild  inarticulate  cry  he  took  her 
in  his  arms. 

Outside,  the  happy  crowds  were  pouring  from  the 
churches;  mothers  were  leading  little  children  to 
their  beds ;  white  love  and  painted  lust  were  waging 
their  old  battle ;  crime  and  virtue,  pride  and  shame, 
purity  and  vice,  were  jostling  each  other  in  the  intri- 
cate intermingling  of  the  currents  of  life.  Inside, 
behind  rich  walls  and  heavy  curtains,  amid  soft  lights 
and  sounds,  two  persons  of  the  same  clay  with  the 
best  and  worst  elsewhere  were  taking  their  involuntary 


280  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

and  indispensable  little  parts  in  the  terrible  great 
game,  moved  by  the  same  Hand  that  governs  the  other 
pieces  and,  sooner  or  later,  sweeps  them  all  from  the 
board.  And  from  above  the  silent  stars  were  shining 
and  the  kindly  night  enfolding  every  one. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 
RETROGRESSION. 

"  THAT  's  a  gorgeous  sunset,"  said  Hardy  as,  a  few 
weeks  after  the  Yale  game,  he  was  walking  down 
Cambridge  Street  with  Stannard  and  Lippincott. 

The  picture  merited,  indeed,  a  less  conventional 
laudation.  The  whole  western  horizon  was  aglow, 
blending  from  the  palest  pink  nearly  in  the  zenith, 
down  to  an  angry  royal  crimson  behind  the  silhouetted 
firs  and  gaunt  bare  elms  of  Cambridge  Common. 
The  entire  sky  was  like  an  inverted  shell,  and  against 
it  even  the  roof  of  Memorial  assumed  an  unwonted 
dignity. 

"  Yes,  it  is  gorgeous,"  assented  Lippincott.  "  Looks 
like  the  pictures  in  public  school  physiologies  of  a 
drunkard's  stomach." 

"  Oh,"  said  Stannard,  "  if  he  sleeps  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Square,  you  won't  recognise  even  the  Sun 
God." 

"  That 's  where  Dick  would  have  been,  I  suppose, 
if  he  had  kept  on  in  the  way  of  righteousness,"  said 
Lippincott. 

"  1  'm  glad  he  apostatised  then,"  remarked  Stannard. 
"Besides,  it's  such  a  relief;  although  he  was  right." 


282  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

"  He  was  like  too  many  of  them,"  said  Lippincott. 
"  He  disappears  for  a  week  after  the  game  and  then 
shows  up  worn,  cynical  and  preternaturally  boisterous." 

"  Not  most  of  them.  Besides,  it  might  have  been 
all  right,  if  we  'd  beaten  Yale,"  mused  Hardy. 

"  Oh,  lots  of  things  would  have  been  different  then," 
said  Lippincott. 

"  If  he  'd  only  been  on  the  debating  team  against 
'em,"  suggested  Stannard.  "  He  'd  have  had  an  easy 
victory  to  encourage  him." 

"  Now  somebody  please  say  something  new  about 
Harvard  brains  and  Yale  brawn,"  growled  Lippincott. 
"  That  game  was  enough  to  drive  any  man  mad.  I 
have  n't  talked  of  it  till  now." 

"  Well,  we  won't  try  to  condone  Jarvis'  former 
offenses,"  Stannard  objected.  "  It  suffices  that  we 
should  be  more  joyous  here  on  earth  over  one  repen- 
tant who  sinneth  again,  than  over  ninety-and-nine 
bad  men  who  never  did  go  right." 

u  He  was  getting  quite  impossible." 

"  Well,  I  suppose  there  is  room  and  work  even  for 
the  impossibles.  Now,  I  like  you,  Lippincott,  because 
you  are  trying,  in  a  lowly  way,  to  imitate  me,  and  so 
serve  as  a  kind  of  imperfect  mirror  or  a  physic,  making 
me  disgusted  with  myself.  Otherwise  I  could  n't 
hope  to  pass  my  '  Mid-Years.' " 

"  I  suppose  Dick  was  really  in  love  after  all,"  said 
Hardy. 


RETROGRESSION.  283 

"  And  was  thrown  down,"  added  Lippincott. 

"  Not  at  all  —  was  accepted,"  Stannard  corrected. 
"  He  is  now  suffering  from  the  discovery  that  a  bird 
in  the  hand  is  not  worth  two  in  the  bush." 

"  And  that  all  is  not  gold  that  catches  the  early 
bird,"  suggested  Lippincott. 

But  Hardy  would  hear  no  more. 

"  Rot !  "  he  cried.  "  What 's  the  use  of  your  talking 
this  way  when  you  don't  mean  a  word  of  it?  You  're 
as  bad  as  the  Major,  and  he's  the  cheapest  boy-cynic 
I  know.  We  're  all  sorry  for  Jarvis,  so  why  don't  we 
say  so  ?  " 

"  Oh,  well,"  grumbled  Lippincott,  "  we  could  n't  do 
anything." 

"Why  not?"  asked  Hardy.  "It's  too  absurd  to 
pretend  we  're  just  the  same  lot.  We  were,  and  cut 
loose,  so  why  can't  he  ?  " 

"  He  did  for  a  while." 

"  Well  he's  back  again  now,  all  right,"  said  Stannard. 

"  I  don't  think  I  'd  laugh  about  it,"  said  Hardy, 
"You  know  as  well  as  I  do  that  the  College  won't 
stand  it  forever.  We  Ve  all  dropped  it." 

"  Oh,  yes,"  said  Lippincott  with  a  short  guffaw, 
"  we  Ve  all  made  the  Institute,  after  having  to  play 
newsboys  in  Harvard  Square  —  if  that's  what  you 
mean —  but  then  Dick  got  in  too." 

"  Oh,  that's  not  all.  Jarvis  has  some  good  stuff  in 
him.  He's  got  some  good  things  into  the  '  Advocate/ 


284  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

and  the  *  Monthly/  too,  and  he  might  have  got  on  the 
board  of  one  of  them  if  he  'd  only  tried.  Even  you, 
Stannard,  slowed  up  and  you  know  it." 

"  Yes,"  suggested  Lippincott,  "  you  stand  in  well 
with  the  '  Advocate '  crowd ;  why  don't  you  try  to  get 
him  on?  " 

"  He  won't  do  anything  to  get  on." 

"  I  found  some  tiptop  verses  on  his  desk  the  other 
day,"  said  Lippincott. 

"  But  he  would  n't  give  up,  you  know." 

"  Then  swipe  them,"  urged  Hardy.  "  You  can  do 
it,  and  once  he  was  on  it  might  work  wonders.  He 
just  has  n't  anything  decent  to  think  about,  that 's  all. 
Then  there  'd  be  the  Signet  ahead,  and  all  that  sort 
of  thing." 

They  turned  into  the  yard  through  the  new  gate 
and  there  they  met  the  subject  of  their  conversation. 

"  Hello,  Jarvis,"  cried  Stannard,  "  we  were  just 
talking  about  you." 

"  I  Ve  often  noticed,"  said  Dick  easily,  "  that  my 
coming  in  puts  others  out !  " 

"  We  can't  take  that  either  literally  or  metaphoric- 
ally here." 

"  Then  let  it  alone,"  growled  Jarvis  suddenly. 

He  was,  indeed,  not  without  some  external  evidence 
of  deserving  the  fears  that  were  being  so  liberally 
expressed  for  him.  He  was  changed  physically  as 
well  as  mentally.  He  was  hurried  and  nervous  in  his 


RETROGRESSION.  285 

movements.     He  was  even  beginning  to  be  careless 
in  his  dress. 

It  was  the  principle  of  reversion  to  a  type  morally 
applied  to  an  individual.  He  had  retrograded  into 
all  his  former  licence.  He  had  cut  loose  and  his  soul 
was  drifting  whither  it  would.  He  did  not  object;  he 
did  not  struggle ;  he  simply  allowed  the  tide  to  bear 
him  wherever  it  listed,  and  he  asked  that  it  bring  him 
to  one  thing  only  —  forgetfulness.  He  had  fallen 
lower  than  before.  Then  his  aesthetic  tastes  had  been 
something  of  a  safeguard ;  more  so,  in  truth,  than  any 
moral  code  could  have  been.  He  had  not  been  able 
to  bear  any  sordidness,  any  too  apparent  vulgarity, 
any  too  mercenary  glimpse  behind  the  scenes.  But 
his  artistic  nature  had  suffered  sorely  at  the  start  of 
his  Freshman  year,  and,  now  that  he  had  returned  to 
his  former  mode  of  existence,  he  found  the  edge  com- 
pletely worn  off.  He  was  willing  to  accept  life  exactly 
as  it  was,  and  without  any  gloss  of  reservation. 

On  this  particular  night  two  new  acquaintances  — 
whom  in  better  circumstances  he  would  scarcely  have 
known,  but  who  were  proud  to  be  seen  spending  the 
money  of  one  who  had  been  something  of  a  figure  in 
the  athletic  world  —  took  him  into  town  to  nothing 
new  or  startling.  From  the  theatre  they  went  to  the 
Smoking  Parlours  where,  in  a  setting  of  tawdry  Ori- 
ental hangings,  Moorish  arches  and  grille-work,  amid  a 
cloud  of  smoke  and  a  clatter  of  laughter,  the  Egyptian 


286  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

waiters  were  serving  chocolate  to  the  few  men  and 
many  women  seated  on  the  hard  divans  that  ran  along 
the  walls.  The  "  men  "  were  usually  callow  youths. 
Some  of  the  women  were  pretty,  but  most  of  them 
were  not.  The  more  popular  had  two  or  three 
cavaliers  and  the  others  sat  quite  alone.  They  were 
mostly  quietly  dressed,  frail-looking  creatures  on  the 
face  of  one  or  two  of  whom  the  finger  of  death  had 
already  set  its  unmistakable  mark.  One  and  all  wore 
big  Leghorn  hats  that  were  generally  shabby,  but 
cast  a  grateful  shade  over  their  faces,  although  unable 
to  hide  the  bright,  tired  eyes,  ringed  with  the  royal 
purple  of  suffering. 

In  spite  of  his  commanding  figure  and  handsome 
face,  Jarvis  was  not  a  favourite  with  the  frequenters  of 
the  place,  many  of  whom  were  women  of  the  town, 
but  most  of  whom  came  there  nightly  after  working 
for  ten  hours  over  the  typewriter  in  some  Milk  Street 
office.  Dick's  cynicism  had  not  served  to  open  his 
eyes  completely,  and  he  had  acquired  an  unfortunate 
habit  of  complimenting  these  women  on  the  one  point 
of  their  beauty  that  happened  to  be  notoriously  un- 
real. In  perfect  innocence  and  sincerity  he  would  be 
sure  to  admire  Ida's  hair  or  Ada's  teeth,  or  he  would 
remark  upon  the  delicacy  of  Madge  Powell's  complex- 
ion, all  to  the  unconcealed  amusement  of  his  male  com- 
panions and  the  scarcely  better  hidden  chagrin  of  the 
lady  in  question. 


RETROGRESSION.  287 

From  the  Smoking  Parlours  Jarvis  and  his  friends 
would  generally  go  with  some  of  these  companions  to 
Jay's  or  the  Kolombienne,  where,  as  a  rule,  they 
preferred  to  drink  in  the  public  room  amid  boisterous 
tables  appropriated  to  the  use  of  parties  like  their 
own.  At  other  times  they  would  go  down  to  "  Little 
Italy  "  or,  closer  by,  to  a  hotel  commonly  known  as 
the  "  Damn-if-I-know,"  because  its  proper  name  was 
supposed  to  resemble  that  statement,  and  because  the 
quality  of  the  wine  served  there  was  calculated  to 
depress  the  bump  of  locality. 

Again  they  would  loiter  about  the  Omega  or  walk 
as  far  as  the  Windsor  Square  Hotel  which  combined 
a  respectable  theatre  with  a  lodging-house,  and  a 
cafe  where  a  Hungarian  band  played  for  five  minutes 
in  every  hour  and  from  which  Jarvis  was  once  forcibly 
ejected  because  he  refused  to  allow  his  casual  sweet- 
heart to  smother  her  raw  oysters  in  catsup  and  flirt 
with  a  commercial  traveller  across  the  way.  Wher- 
ever they  went,  however,  the  night  usually  ended 
in  the  same  way  —  a  drive  back  to  Cambridge  for 
breakfast  with  the  windows  of  the  cab  to  pay  for  on 
arriving. 

Some  of  the  men  made  themselves  distasteful 
because  they  had  one  girl  or  another  in  love  with 
them  and  because  they  usually  boasted  of  that  fact. 
Jarvis  was  often  silent  and  the  burden  of  the  talk  fell 
upon  the  younger  ones,  —  cheap  pessimists  at  whose 


288  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

sayings  the  women  laughed  because,  bright  chaffers 
as  they  were,  they  did  not  understand  them. 

When  Jarvis  was  alone,  as  was  sometimes  the  case, 
he  would  walk  up  and  down  Tremont  and  Washington 
Streets  talking  a  little  to  first  one  and  then  the  other 
of  the  girls  he  chanced  to  meet.  These  women  were 
of  another  class  from  that  of  those  who  frequented  the 
Smoking  Parlours.  Some  of  them  were  lower,  but  the 
majority  had  only  started  on  the  down-hill  path  and 
he  was  interested  to  know  their  stories.  The  tales 
they  told  were  generally  similar  and  palpably  false. 
They  were  all  of  good  families  and  would  not  for  any- 
thing have  it  known  what  their  life  was,  especially 
those  who  had  a  husband  in  New  York.  Poor  little 
outcasts !  There  was  not  much  of  the  Delilah  about 
them  !  Once,  in  fact,  he  would  certainly  have  pitied 
them.  But  not  now.  Now  he  was  past  pitying  him- 
self, whose  plight  appeared  quite  as  desperate  as 
theirs. 

He  would  go  back  to  Cambridge,  if  at  all,  by  night, 
just  in  time  to  catch  the  last  cup  of  coffee  from  the 
"  owl  "  lunch-cart  in  Harvard  Square.  The  proctors 
—  who  exist  only  after  nine  in  the  evening  —  knew 
him  now  no  more  than  did  the  back  streets  that  he 
for  a  while  had  walked  to  the  Polo  Club  and,  indeed 
most  of  the  friends  of  his  Freshman  year  saw  almost 
as  little  of  him.  The  Major  was  still  sometimes  his 
companion  and  Stannard  he  liked  because  the  fellow 


RETROGRESSION.  289 

was  yet,  in  spite  of  a  general  quieting,  so  splendidly 
a  boy.  But  the  others  he  now  scarcely  ever  met, 
except  occasionally  at  a  club. 

Thus  their  deep  plans  nearly  all  fell  short.  The 
verses  were  published  and  attracted  considerable 
attention.  The  "  Crimson  "  condescended  to  call 
them  "  an  interesting  bit "  and  Jarvis'  acquaintances 
all  applauded.  But  Jarvis  himself  was  rooted  in  his 
way.  He  would  have  no  editorship  and  if  they 
bothered  him  any  more  they  might  all  go  the  devil. 

This  attitude  brought  Hardy  to  speech. 

"  Look  here,"  he  said,  holding  up  Jarvis  one  mid- 
night at  a  club.  "  If  there  ever  was  a  damned  fool 
you  're  it." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Jarvis,  quietly. 

"  Oh,  I  mean  it.  They  tell  me  you  Ve  declined  an 
election  to  the  '  Advocate.'  " 

"  You  ought  to  know." 

"  Don't  you  call  it  uncivil?  " 

"  I  did  n't  seek  it.  I  did  n't  send  them  that  verse. 
You  did  —  or  one  of  your  gang.  I  wrote  it,  but  you 
ragged  it  like  a  Freshman  stealing  a  doctor's  sign." 

"  Come  now,  Dick,  you  know  what  we  did  it  for. 
You  're  a  known  man  and  everybody  's  watching  you. 
You  Ve  got  an  example  to  set.  And  besides,  think  of 
yourself.  You  're  a  figure  in  the  Yard,  or  in  lectures 
—  whenever  you  go  —  or  even  at  Leavitt's.  What  do 
you  want  to  kill  yourself  for  —  or  be  dropped  ? 

19 


JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

You  Ve  been  through  it  all  in  your  Freshman  year  — 
we  most  of  us  have  —  and  no  harm  done.  But  you  're 
not  a  Freshman  now.  You  Ve  made  one  kind  of  a 
'  rep  '  on  the  team,  now  you  Ve  only  got  to  brace  up 
and  do  the  same  thing  on  the  '  Advocate.' " 

Jarvis  stood  by,  hands  in  pockets,  swaying  a  trifle 
and  letting  the  young  chap  run  on. 

"  You  know  we  don't  generally  talk  this  way  to  any 
fellow  here.  If  he  wants  to  be  an  ass,  we  let  him  get 
himself  fired.  But  you  're  different.  The  '  Advo- 
cate '  means  a  lot.  Why,  you  Ve  everything  ahead 
of  you  —  no  man  in  College  has  more.  You  '11  be 
taken  into  the  Signet  with  the  first  seven  on  Straw- 
berry Night  and  "  —  he  was  trying  to  laugh  it  off — 
"  and  having  Booth  Ledweln  and  all  the  English 
Department  drop  in  to  read  Catulle  Mendes  to  you." 

"  Is  that  all  you  Ve  got  to  say  ?  " 

Hardy  grew  desperate.  He  used  his  last  card  as  a 
Harvard  Undergraduate.  "  No,  I  Ve  just  got  this 
much  more,  —  if  you  keep  this  up  you  '11  never  have  a 
smell  at  the  Dickie,  and  you  know  it." 

Jarvis  was  softened  a  bit  by  the  fellow's  evident 
desire  to  help,  and  he  put  an  unsteady  but  kindly 
hand  upon  his  shoulder. 

"Affreux,  affreux"  he  said.  "The  Med.  Facs. 
would  be  more  in  my  style,  I  imagine  and  they 
wouldn't  have  me.  I'm  much  obliged,  old  boy,  but 
it's  —  it's  no  use." 


RETROGRESSION.  29 1 

So  the  days  sped  on,  very  much  alike  in  that  they 
were  hard  indeed  on  one  of  those  over  whom  they 
passed.  At  last  even  the  Major  began  to  remon- 
strate, mildly  it  is  true,  but  still  to  remonstrate.  Yet 
he  fared  no  better  than  Hardy  had  done. 

"  You  're  going  the  pace  faster  than  any  of  us  ever 
did,"  he  said  one  day.  "  You  ought  to  slow  up  just 
a  bit,  you  know.  You  are  getting  to  be  one  of  those 
who  live  not  wisely  but  too  well." 

He  had  had  a  real  feeling  of  friendship  for  the 
morose  Sophomore  —  although  he  would  not  own  it 
—  and  knew  that  he  had  liked  the  lad  from  the 
moment  Jarvis  had  first  knocked  him  down  that 
"  Bloody  Monday  "  night.  Friendship  was  a  sentiment 
which  the  Major  refused  to  believe  indigenous  to  the 
human  heart,  but  he  did  not  want  to  see  the  fellow 
utterly  wrecked,  and  he  knew  the  channel  so  well  that 
he  would  willingly  have  acted  as  pilot. 

Dick,  however,  continued  to  refuse  all  advice.  He 
knew  what  he  was  doing,  he  said.  He  was  no  babe 
in  arms.  He  would  please  himself. 

And  he  did. 

About  this  time  he  began  to  frequent  only  the 
cheaper  theatres,  because  he  did  not  have  to  change 
his  clothes  before  going  there.  At  one  of  these  per- 
formances he  met  a  woman  who  engrossed  the  larger 
part  of  his  leisure  —  Vinnie  Dooner,  once  the  chief 
figure  in  a  cause  cetebre  that  grew  from  an  attempt  to 


JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

give  an  imperial  Roman  banquet  in  republican  New 
York.  This  girl  was,  upon  the  whole,  good  for  him, 
and  served  to  restore  in  a  measure  his  confidence 
in  human  nature.  She  was  pretty,  cheerful,  liberal, 
good-hearted,  Bohemian.  She  had  no  ends  to  serve 
but  to  amuse  herself,  and  when  his  money  ran  out, 
her  own  full  purse  was  always  ready.  When  he  was 
cynical  she  laughed  at  him ;  when  he  was  morose  she 
sang  negro  songs  until  he  was  merry  again.  Above 
all,  she  was  careful  of  his  money  and,  in  a  subtle  way, 
served  to  prepare  his  heart  for  what  was  even  then 
waiting  to  enter  it. 

"  She  's  such  a  relief,"  Jarvis  one  day  explained 
her  to  the  Major.  "  There 's  nothing  mercenary 
about  her.  I  quite  admire  her,  don't  you  ?  " 

"Admire  her?"  replied  his  friend,  "I  should  say 
I  did,  even  more  than  I  do  Lola  Varnard.  Why,  I  Ve 
known  her  for  years  and  she 's  the  only  woman  I 
have  never  loved." 

She  left  town  and  Jarvis'  life  after  a  short  stay,  and 
the  latter,  though  not,  it  is  true,  morally  improved, 
was  at  least  inclined  to  take  a  more  cheerful  view 
of  the  world. 

Yet  if  he  was  no  longer  febrile,  he  was  lethargic 
and  rather  content  with  his  mode  of  life.  Everything 
was  very  much  the  same  to  him.  Goodness  and 
vice  came  to  be  looked  at  as  of  a  common  piece. 
Both  were  delicately  relative.  Some  persons  were 


RETROGRESSION.  2Q3 

what  was  called  good  because  they  preferred  the 
sensations  consequent  upon  that  state.  For  the 
same  excellent  reason  others,  and  himself  among 
them,  were  bad.  He  thus  came  to  have  for  many  of 
the  generally  accepted  facts  of  life  no  more  eyes 
than  the  protei  of  the  Madalena  Grotto.  He  no 
longer  argued,  no  longer  reasoned  with  himself.  He 
had  found  his  reason  in  an  unexpected  way  and  he 
rather  enjoyed  it. 

The  Major  was  explaining  to  him  just  what  he  did 
feel  when  one  day  Hardy  came  into  the  room. 

" What's  the  matter  with  you?"  he  was  asked. 

"  Nothing.  Just  been  to  '  U-4,'  and  they  have 
been  telling  me  how  to  study." 

"  Here,  have  a  pipe.  There  's  nothing  like  a  pipe 
to  teach  the  Christian  virtue  of  forgiveness.  I've 
just  been  telling  Jarvis  what  he  thinks." 

"  Um,  have  you?    Well,  what  does  he  think? " 

"What  I  do." 

"  Naturally,  and  what 's  that?  " 

"That  you  won't  be  the  only  man  to  flunk  his 
'  Mid-Years.' " 

"  That 's  just  what  I  Ve  been  telling  Mr.  Shamm 
over  at  the  Office.  Oh,  by  the  way  Dick,  I  just  got 
a  letter  from  Miss  Bartol." 

"Miss  Bartol?  "  asked  Jarvis,  unable  for  the  instant 
to  recognise  his  relative  under  that  appellation. 

"  Yes.     Your  cousin,  you  know." 


294  JARVIS   OF    HARVARD. 

"  Oh,  you  did  ?     I  did  n't  know  you  wrote  to  her." 

"  I  don't.  Only  sent  her  a  Harvard  pin  the  other 
day.  Bet  her  on  the  Yale  fiasco,  and  forgot  it  till  last 
week." 

"  Well,  did  she  surprise  you  by  having  anything 
interesting  to  say?"  asked  the  Major. 

"  She  always  surprises  one.  You  can  count  on  her 
for  that." 

"She  does,  does  she?"  grumbled  Jarvis.  "Well, 
what  was  it  this  time  ? " 

"  I  believe  she  is  going  to  favour  the  Hub  with 
another  visit.  She  sent  her  regards  to  you." 

"  Thank  her,  when  you  write  again." 

Jarvis  was  displeased  and  when  he  was  so  he  could 
not  help  showing  it.  In  this  case  he  was  ridiculous, 
of  course,  look  at  it  how  he  would.  But  no  amount 
of  ridicule  would  alter  matters.  He  had  never  had 
more  than  a  chance  for  Peggy,  and  he  had  lost  that 
chance,  resigning  himself  to  the  fact  with  consider- 
able ease.  To  expect  that  no  one  else  should  win 
her  was  absurd.  To  be  angry  with  a  friend  for 
merely  writing  to  her  was  ludicrous.  He  tried  to 
think  that  this  man,  leading  the  seemingly  insipid  life 
he  did,  was  not  suited  to  her.  But  he  remembered 
that  he  had  been  no  better  and  was  now  much  worse. 
Nevertheless,  he  was  as  much  disturbed  as  it  was 
possible  for  one  in  his  condition  to  be. 

When,  however,  his  cousin  finally  made    her  tri- 


RETROGRESSION.  295 

umphant  entry  into  the  city,  Christmas  had  come 
and  gone,  and  Jarvis,  having  failed  in  his  "Mid-Years," 
was  again  on  probation.  Forced  then  to  pay  his  re- 
spects to  Peggy  and  her  mother,  he  found,  as  he 
expected,  that  matters  were  only  made  worse  by  her 
proximity.  Landor  says  that  "  the  really  beautiful, 
rarely  love  at  all,"  and  certain  it  is  that  even  pretty 
women  have  no  pity  for  the  terror  that  they  inspire 
in  their  less  favoured  admirers.  After  the  manner 
of  lovers,  who  are  proverbially  exacting,  Jarvis  had 
taken  it  for  granted  that  Peggy,  by  some  instinct  that 
he  did  not  stop  to  name,  would  understand  his  feel- 
ings and  adopt  a  bearing  in  accordance  with  them. 
Either  from  choice  or  ignorance,  she  did  nothing  of 
the  sort.  She  seemed  very  naturally  to  regard  him 
less  as  a  possible  suitor  and  more  as  a  necessary 
relative  than  ever  before.  Added  to  this,  he  was 
surprised  to  find  Hardy  there  and  with  him  Mallard. 

His  cousin  complimented  him  on  his  playing  in  the 
Yale  game ;  condoled  with  him  on  his  defeat ;  asked 
him  a  few  conventional  questions  about  the  health  of 
his  parents,  and,  without  waiting  for  reply,  proceeded 
to  occupy  herself  with  his  friends.  As  a  result,  his 
self-conceit  received  a  healthy  blow  that  drove  him 
from  the  hotel,  before  either  of  the  other  callers  had 
left,  with  a  sense  of  how  fatuous  any  attempt  at 
winning  this  woman  had  ever  been. 

He   pursued  thereafter  the  uneven  tenour  of  his 


2Q6  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

ways,  but  it  was  more  extreme  and  broken  than  before. 
His  dissipations  were  lower  and  more  riotous  and 
were  followed  by  intense  days  of  bitter  repentance 
and  remorse.  At  times  the  blood,  of  which  Mary 
Braddock  had  spoken  so  skeptically,  was  fire  in  his 
veins,  and  again  it  was  cold  as  lead.  He  did  go  to 
see  Peggy  occasionally,  but  these  brief  visits  resulted 
only  in  the  feeling  that  he  must  be  a  sort  of  Jekyll- 
Hyde,  harmful  to  himself  alone ;  a  man  like  Heine's 
Prince  Israel,  for  six  days  of  the  week  "  a  dog  with 
the  desires  of  a  dog  "  who  "  wallows  all  day  long  in 
the  filth  and  refuse  of  life,  amidst  the  jeers  of  the 
boys  in  the  street,"  but  who,  at  least  one  day  in 
seven,  is  ((  a  man  with  the  feelings  of  a  man,  with 
head  and  heart  raised  aloft,  in  festal  garb,  in  almost 
clean  garb,"  entering  the  halls  of  his  inheritance  and 
meeting  the  Princess  Sabbath,  "  the  tranquil  Princess  " 
whom  he  loved. 

For  he  did  love  her.  Beaten  and  broken,  de- 
bauched and  sacrificed,  he  could  not  tear  all  rem- 
nants of  that  hopeless  passion  from  his  heart.  His 
aesthetic  side  was  irritated  bi}t  not  roused.  Nothing, 
it  appeared,  could  restore  it  to  its  old  vigorous  life. 
He  could  no  longer  bear  to  be  alone.  Most  of  his 
time  he  slept  in  the  Major's  quarters  with  the  pro- 
prietor, to  whom  he  became  closer  and  closer  allied. 
There  was  no  more  wandering  about  the  streets,  or 
looking,  without  any  other  companion,  into  the  bright 


RETROGRESSION.  297 

eyes  of  Jessie,  dying  of  consumption ;  no  more  laugh- 
ing with  Lola  and,  for  the  time,  forgetting  all  else 
while  he  laughed.  Apart  in  his  own  room,  he  could 
not  stay.  There  the  Voltaire  grinned  at  him  in 
demoniacal  triumph  and  the  Christ,  a  picture  of 
Jarvis'  own  mind,  writhed  and  twisted  upon  its  cross. 
Finally  he  had  broken  them  both.  Slow-working 
nervous  degeneration  had  made  him  sensitive  to  an 
unbearable  degree.  But  he  could  nowhere  hide  him- 
self. Always  there  were  in  his  ears  the  words  of  his 
Cassandra : 

"  Whenever  she  crosses  your  path,  this  woman, 
sooner  or  later,  will  cast  you  down  deeper  than  ever 
you  were  before.  '  Your  own  iniquities  shall  take 
you,  and  you  shall  be  holden  by  the  cords  of  your 
sins.'" 

His  religious  sentiments,  if  he  had  any,  could  not 
be  appealed  to  by  those  phases  of  existence  that  for 
him,  at  this  time,  made  up  the  whole  round  of  life. 
To  admit  a  logical  explanation  of  the  universe  did 
away,  to  his  mind,  with  the  necessity  of  revelation. 
He  had  no  use  for  the  old  anthropomorphic  idea  of 
God  and  was  unable  to  substitute  for  it  anything  but 
a  mere  metaphysical  abstraction. 

He  came  to  take  an  altogether  morbid  view  of 
things.  Was  he  at  the  theatre?  He  looked  around 
him.  Each  one  of  these  laughing  men,  women,  and 
children  there  represented  a  mother's  birth-agony; 


298  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

every  one  was  under  sentence  of  death.  Was  he  at 
some  low  dance?  Each  of  those  flesh-clothed,  silk- 
clothed  skeletons  prancing  about  the  room  and  keep- 
ing time  to  certain  sounds  produced  by  scraping  cat- 
gut, every  one,  he  smiled  to  think  of  it,  was  made  in 
the  image,  or  one  of  the  images  of  God.  So  was  it 
everywhere.  The  petty  merchant  cheating  his  cus- 
tomer; the  broker  cheating  his  friend ;  the  thief ;  the 
liar ;  the  prostitute ;  the  perpetrators  of  all  the  un- 
named, unspeakable,  unimaginable  crimes  that  defile 
the  soul  of  man  —  were  themselves  the  owners  of  souls 
immortal;  were  his  brothers  and  his  sisters;  were 
moulded  by  the  same  hand,  of  the  same  clay,  that 
made  and  moulded  him. 

So  the  sense  of  evil  was  slowly  vanishing,  the  last 
trace  of  sentiment  was  gradually  wearing  away,  when 
the  final  reaction  came  from  an  unexpected  quarter. 


CHAPTER  XX. 
THE   LAW   OF   COINCIDENCE. 

A  SPARROW  left  in  a  bell-glass  will  live,  breathing 
the  same  air  over  and  over  again,  about  three  hours, 
although  a  second  bird,  introduced  at  the  end  of  the 
second  hour,  would  die  almost  at  once.  On  some 
such  principle,  no  doubt,  Jarvis  was  bearing  what  no 
healthy  man  could  have  borne.  But  he  was  nearing 
the  end  of  his  string  when  the  Easter  vacation  ap- 
proached. He  never  went  near  a  doctor  until  there 
was  no  alternative  left  him,  but  then  his  few  visits 
ended  first  with  ominous  prophecies,  and  later  with 
positive  declarations.  He  had  not  gone  home  for  the 
brief  Christmas  or  Mid-Year  holidays.  The  com- 
pany of  respectable  people  was  becoming  unendur- 
able to  him.  Accustomed  to  the  vitiated  and  feculent 
air  of  his  bell-glass,  he  was  unfit  to  breathe  anything 
more  healthy  and  vigorous.  So  he  had  visited  New 
York,  and  spent  the  time  carousing  there. 

His  diseased  views  had  slowly  extended  themselves 
from  the  general  to  the  particular,  so  that  it  was  not 
long  before  he  had  begun  to  consider  everybody  as 
little  better  than  himself.  His  cousin  alone  escaped. 


3OO  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

She  was  the  one  saint  whose  shrine  remained  undese- 
crated  and  inviolable.  Yet  he  began  to  persuade 
himself  that  even  his  dream  of  her  could  never  have 
been  realised.  Mary  was  right.  In  the  end  he  would 
have  been  unhappy  and,  what  Was  even  now  more  to 
him,  he  would  have  made  his  cousin  so.  Thus,  while 
confessing  that  he  loved  her,  and  still  at  times  bitterly 
regretting  that  he  had  so  irretrievably  lost  her,  he  yet 
comforted  himself  with  the  base  solace  that  he  was 
better  off  as  he  was. 

He  could  not  have  been  happy  with  her,  he  thought. 
The  loosest  man  in  his  own  conduct  is  the  severest  in 
regard  to  that  of  his  future  wife.  Dick  was  no  ex- 
ception. Not  that  he  thought  ill  of  her.  Low  as  he 
had  fallen,  he  could  not  have  come  to  that.  It  was 
the  immaculate  sacredness,  the  inapproachable  deifi- 
cation of  her  purity  that  made  his  despair  of  her  un- 
bearable. But  for  the  puzzle  of  her  ingenuousness, 
he  had  found  only  one  answer:  she  was  hopelessly 
indiscreet.  Unspeakably  holy  as  she  was  in  fact  and 
to  him,  he  yet  argued,  and  with  some  show  of  reason, 
that  this  one  trait,  small  as  it  superficially  appeared, 
would  have  proved  shortly  fatal  to  all  content  and 
peace  of  mind. 

He  reflected  that  their  manner  of  meeting  in  the 
Public  Gardens  had  been  far  from  conventional ;  and 
that  Peggy  played  a  little  too  gracefully  with  a  style 
of  repartee  of  which  he  should  have  preferred  that  she 


THE   LAW   OF  COINCIDENCE.  301 

stand  In  complete  ignorance.  She  said  that  she  had 
recognised  him  from  the  first.  But  had  she?  The 
recognition  would  have  been  better  received  had  it 
been  announced  at  the  outset.  And,  anyhow,  Was  her 
conduct  quite  wise  ?  Was  she,  even  at  her  own  esti- 
mate, altogether  unreprehensible? 

Of  course,  taken  at  its  very  worst,  it  could  all  have 
been  but  a  silly  piece  of  innocent  girlishness.  Still  — 
though  as  her  lover  he  did  not  hesitate  to  explain  all 
this  by  the  correct  supposition  that  they  were  speaking 
at  cross-purposes  and  that  he  had  misunderstood  or 
umvittingly  misinterpreted  her  —  yet,  as  her  husband, 
with  their  world  necessarily  made  up  of  men  less 
kindly  in  the  constructions  they  would  put  upon  such 
passages,  he  would  sooner  or  later  have  had  to  sub- 
mit to  the  truth  that  though  modesty  too  easily 
offended  is  a  very  doubtful  virtue,  there  is  still  an 
obvious  converse  to  the  proposition.  He  would, 
supposing  he  had  won  her,  inevitably  have  recoiled 
from  the  sting  of  common  tongues,  and  have  attempted 
to  enslave  her  and  to  rob  her  of  her  chief  charm.  It 
was  a  poor  comfort,  but  it  was  the  only  one  at 
hand. 

Meanwhile,  letting  himself  drift,  he  did  little  to 
regain  his  academic  position.  He  was  in  an  exagger- 
ated form  of  the  condition  that  had  marked  the  period 
following  his  desertion  from  the  Freshman  class  team 
the  year  before.  Fortunately,  none  of  his  studies 


3O2  JARVIS   OF    HARVARD. 

were  affected  by  the  new  7.45  recitation  rule,  but  he 
slept  through  his  "  Nine  O'Clocks,"  and,  as  two  of 
his  courses  were  given  in  "  Lower  Mass,"  to  which 
he  had  taken  a  particular  dislike,  he  was  not  over- 
burdened with  College  work.  Moreover,  he  had  long 
since  ceased  to  take  notes  in  any  course. 

Yet,  under  the  Harvard  system,  even  if  one  does  no 
more,  so  long  as  one  attends  some  lectures  and  does 
not  pay  small  boys  to  sit  in  one's  place,  a  certain 
modicum  of  necessary  knowledge  is  bound  to  perco- 
late into  one's  head  ;  and  so,  by  the  aid  of  that  Provi- 
dence which  cares  for  the  careless,  or  by  force  of  the 
real  ability  that,  though  stunted  and  untended,  was 
yet  in  him,  he  managed,  though  he  remained  on  pro- 
bation, to  graze  through  "  Sprung  Exams  "  in  the 
studies  he  detested,  and  to  keep  up  with  considerable 
tclat  in  those  which  he  had  liked. 

Hardy,  who  had  worked  more  or  less  systematically 
from  the  first  of  his  Sophomore  year,  and  who  had 
studied  hard  during  the  second  term,  was  coming  out 
of  the  trial  with  a  fair  average.  Mallard  was  always 
able  to  escape  by  dint  of  certain  methods  known  to 
himself  alone,  methods  reinforced  by  weighty  argu- 
ments and  vehement  pleadings  with  his  instructors. 
Of  the  four,  however,  Jarvis  and  the  Major,  who  cared 
the  least,  came  out,  as  is  usually  the  case,  well  in  the 
lead  about  Easter  time.  After  one  examination  that 
had  been  suddenly  spread  before  him,  Jarvis,  knowing 


THE  LAW   OF  COINCIDENCE.  303 

he  had  done  wonders,  and  since  he  had  really  not 
worried  at  all  about  it,  was  naturally  the  most  delighted, 
and  started  in  to  celebrate  accordingly. 

Mirth,  however,  is  essentially  a  short-lived  sensa- 
tion. It  requires  a  great  deal  of  fuel  to  keep  the 
dying  spark  aglow ;  and  though  Jarvis  fed  and  fanned 
it  with  praiseworthy  diligence  it  soon  went  out,  leav- 
ing him  only  ashes  for  a  souvenir.  Thus  the  season 
of  Lent  wore  to  its  close.  He  was  quite  degenerated 
and  disgusted.  There  were  times  when  he  even 
thought  of  leaving  College  and  volunteering,  as  one 
or  two  men  he  knew,  for  service  in  the  Philippines. 

He  had  begun  by  spending  a  good  deal  of  his  time 
at  his  club,  but  he  soon  found  its  membership  too 
healthy  for  his  taste.  It  was  a  pleasant  place  and 
required  no  intellectual  effort,  but  its  soft  leather  and 
hard  wood,  its  dark  walls  and  deep  chairs,  its  maga- 
zines and  the  convenient  lights  to  read  them  by,  soon 
got  on  his  nerves.  The  games  of  cards,  the  sight  of 
the  comic  papers,  and  the  young  fellows  dozing  on  the 
divans,  all  annoyed  him,  and  he  preferred  that  little 
set  of  men  who  were  unknown  within  those  walls,  but 
who,  glad  to  spend  his  money  and  to  be  seen  in  his 
company,  were  always  ready  to  applaud  his  perform- 
ances in  town. 

Even  Stannard  appeared  to  Jarvis  to  have  become 
one  of  the  general  type.  He  was  a  member  of  three 
dubs  and  the  B.  A.  A.  and,  beside  that,  appeared 


304  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

merely  the  sort  of  fellow  one  meets  everywhere  irt  the 
places  where  everybody  one  likes  always  goes.  He 
ate  regularly  at  the  club  just  as,  for  example,  Innez, 
the  former  Freshman  captain,  ate  at  Memorial,  though 
declaring  that  if  he  were  elected  a  director  of  that  last 
named  institution  he  would  do  dire  things  in  the  re- 
vision of  the  food.  But  Jarvis  picked  up  his  meals 
wherever  he  happened  to  be,  —  at  the  "  Holly  Tree," 
even  at  the  lunch  wagon  in  the  Square. 

With  the  considerably  quieted  Major  he  meanwhile 
managed,  however,  to  get  on  very  well.  This  friend 
played  the  piano  with  consummate  skill  and  brilliance 
and  the  rarer  element  of  real  poetic  feeling.  Jarvis' 
quietest  hours  were  spent  listening  to  him.  Yet  he 
was  not  happy  anywhere  and  awaited  gloomily  the 
approach  of  final  academic  catastrophe. 

"  You  ought  to  draw  the  line  somewhere,"  the 
Major  once  again  remarked.  "  You  're  beginning  to 
make  a  spectacle  of  yourself  in  public  on  the  rare 
occasions  that  you  appear  there." 

"How  so?" 

"  Well  you  were  certainly  the  centre  of  attraction 
in  the  indoor  games  at  Mechanics'  Hall  the  other 
night,  just  as  we  beat  Penn,  in  the  quarter.  Besides, 
here 's  this  affair  of  the  old  pump.  Some  ass  blows 
it  up  with  dynamite.  Well,  as  soon  as  the  faculty 
gets  tired  of  the  old  Med.  Fac.  myth,  they  '11  look 
among  just  such  men  as  you  for  the  culprit." 


THE   LAW   OF  COINCIDENCE.  305 

"  You  don't  mean  to  intimate  that  I  'd  do  such  a 
rotten  trick?" 

"  Not  at  all.  I  know  that  nobody  in  College  would, 
and  that  it  was  the  work  of  muckers.  I  am  certain 
you  would  n't  do  it,  because  I  know  you.  But  there 
are  those  at  the  head  of  things  who  don't  know  you. 
Remember  that." 

This  was  one  night  in  March.  Some  weeks  later, 
one  Tuesday  morning  about  eight  o'clock  he  was 
driving  back  to  Cambridge  from  a  ball  at  which  most 
of  the  women  had  preferred  to  dance  alone.  He  had 
been  intensely  bored  and,  since  he  was  fast  losing  his 
taste  for  good  reading,  was  wondering  what  he  could 
turn  to  next,  what  thing  was  left  for  him,  when  he 
noticed  that  his  herdic  was  passing  the  old  Tower 
Lyceum.  Impelled  by  he  knew  not  what,  he  stopped, 
dragged  himself  out  and,  without  ever  looking  at  the 
bills  of  the  play,  bought  a  ticket  for  that  night's  per- 
formance. 

He  went  home  and  slept  until  six  o'clock  when  he 
woke  asking  himself  how,  after  dinner,  he  should  put 
in  the  evening.  While  he  was  dressing  his  eye  was 
caught  by  the  yellow  piece  of  cardboard  that  he  had 
purchased  nine  hours  before  and  thrown  upon  his 
dressing-table  when  he  went  to  bed.  He  did  not 
want  to  go  to  the  place  now,  but,  after  all,  as  there 
was  nothing  else  offering,  he  decided  to  drop  in. 

When  he  entered  the  box  of  which  he  found  him- 
20 


306  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

self  the  sole  occupant,  the  "  first  part "  was  already 
well  on.  The  company  was  new  to  him,  but  as  he 
ran  a  cursory  eye  over  the  chorus  he  thought  he 
noticed  something  familiar  about  one  of  the  girls. 
She  was  standing  near  the  middle  of  the  line,  and  was 
conspicuous  for  the  absence  of  artificial  aids  to  a 
figure  short  and  slim,  but  trim  and  shapely.  She 
wore  a  white  silk  jacket  edged  with  black  braid,  and 
her  legs  were  encased  in  a  pair  of  delicate  pink  tights. 

" '  Too  narrow  in  the  hips,'  O  Caesar !  "  he  quoted. 

The  next  moment  he  remembered  her  as  the  girl 
who  had  attracted  his  eye  the  first  night  he  had  been 
in  the  house;  the  girl  he  had  failed  to  meet,  and 
whom,  after  falling  in  with  Maggie  Du  Mar,  he  had 
forgotten  a  month  later.  A  flood  of  memories  rushed 
back  upon  him  and  he  shrank  a  little  behind  the 
curtain  of  the  box,  instinctively  hiding  his  face  from 
the  rest  of  the  house. 

That  first  visit  to  the  Tower ;  that  first  glimpse  of 
what  he  thought  was  "  the  world,"  the  romantic 
thrill  that  had  shot  through  him  when  their  eyes  first 
met,  —  this  woman's  and  his,  —  how  long  ago  it  all 
seemed !  And  how  old  and  withered  he  felt  now ! 
For  now  the  glamour  had  fled ;  romance  had  slowly 
crumbled  away  and  left  him  to  see  that  then,  when  he 
considered  himself  disillusioned,  he  was  still  utterly 
and  pleasantly  deceived.  Was  the  game  to  go  on  like 
this  forever?  At  the  end  of  every  year  was  he  to  find 


THE  LAW  OF  COINCIDENCE.  307 

himself  more  skeptical,  sadder,  and  wiser  than  at  its 
beginning?  Was  every  month  to  strip  another  rag 
from  the  tattered  cloak  of  life?  At  the  end  of  each 
succeeding  retrospect  was  he  to  say  that  he  had  been 
a  virgin  then  compared  to  what  he  had  since  become? 
The  thought  that  there  had  been  a  chance  then,  when 
he  imagined  himself  lost,  suggested  for  a  while  that  in 
a  few  months  he  might  be  saying  the  same  thing  of 
this  moment;  but  he  banished  the  idea  with  the  re- 
flection that  though  it  might  be  possible  to  grow 
worse,  it  was  out  of  the  question  now  or  ever  to  grow 
better.  Nay,  he  could  not  even  stand  still,  he  could 
not  remain  as  he  was.  He  was  ridden  by  his  Master, 
and  the  rowels  were  sharp  in  his  side.  The  hot  tears 
sprang  up  into  his  eyes  and  blinded  him.  Sin  had 
been  so  young  and  so  beautiful ;  it  had  become  so 
hideous  and  tyrannical. 

For  a  few  days  after  he  had  seen  her  that  first  time 
at  the  Tower,  Jarvis  had  elevated  this  girl  on  a  little 
stage  in  his  own  heart.  He  had  never  disassociated 
her  from  the  kindly,  deceiving  glare  of  the  footlights 
until  Memory  had  rung  down  the  curtain  and  the  scene 
had  permanently  changed.  How  much  had  happened 
since  then  !  How  different  he  was  and  yet  how  much 
the  same !  The  illusion  had  gone  forever  from  the 
picture ;  the  tinsel  to  his  tired  eyes  was  only  tinsel 
now.  He  saw  beneath  the  powder  and  the  paint,  and 
thought  merely  of  the  unpleasant  realities  there.  And 


308  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

yet  this  was  the  work  of  but  one  year.  What  the  others 
would  do  he  dared  not  farther  guess.  He  had  risen 
and  fought  and  failed  and  fallen  again  since  then,  and 
here  he  was  once  more,  the  same  but  changed,  pur- 
suing pleasures  which  had  ceased  to  please,  grasping 
at  phantoms  which  he  knew  would  vanish  in  his  hand. 
What  a  terrible  thing  was  life,  even  at  its  best,  and 
how  ordinary  and  commonplace  his  life  had  been ! 
It  was  simply  a  tiresome  iteration  of  the  old  story 
of  sin  and  repentance  and  sin  again,  —  the  old  tale  of 
shame  and  grief. 

He  was  recalled  from  these  disturbing  introspections 
by  the  ending  of  the  first  part  and  got  up  and  went 
out  until  he  thought  it  time  for  the  chorus  to  "  come 
on"  again.  For  awhile  he  was  tempted  not  to  return 
ajt  all,  but  the  sensation,  though  unpleasant  to  a 
degree,  had  nevertheless  the  charm  of  novelty  and, 
like  Francis  Saltus,  he  would  have  roasted  his  hand 
for  the  sake  of  that.  When  he  did  get  back  it  was  to 
find  the  girl  again  on  the  stage  and  to  make  a  signal 
to  meet  her  at  the  close  of  the  performance.  Shortly 
after,  he  got  up  and  went  out  once  more  without  wait- 
ing to  see  the  end  of  the  burlesque  or  more  of  her, 
except  to  nod  an  assurance  that  he  would  be  at  the 
stage  door  when  the  time  came. 

He  put  in  the  remaining  half-hour  by  a  walk  down 
Tremont  Street,  returning  by  way  of  an  old  hotel  off 
the  Square  from  the  management  of  which  a  woman 


THE  LAW  OF  COINCIDENCE.  309 

rose  to  be  the  dictator  of  what  New  York  is  pleased 
to  admire  as  its  "  Society."  When  he  returned  to 
the  theatre  the  crowd  was  already  coming  out  and  he 
had  not  long  to  wait. 

The  girl  came  upon  the  street  alone,  among  the 
first  to  pass  the  stage  door.  She  was  defended  from 
the  damp  east  winds  by  only  a  small  shoulder  cape  of 
thin  material  and  was  dressed  in  almost  shabby  black. 
But  her  face  was  not  much  changed  by  the  total 
banishment  of  what  little  rouge  there  had  been  on  it 
and  she  stood  the  test  of  the  lamp-light  very  well. 

"  Of  course  you  don't  remember  me,"  said  Jarvis, 
as  they  walked  down  toward  the  Omega. 

"  Yes,  I  do,"  she  replied,  laughing.  "  It's  funny, 
but  I  do.  You  were  here  in  September  or  October 
last  year  when  I  was  with  Ribbie's  company.  You 
were  Maggie  Du  Mar's  friend." 

"  Because  you  would  n't  let  me  be  yours  —  yes." 

"  Oh,  you  were  too  slow !  I  wanted  you  bad 
enough,  but  I  could  n't  stand  there  on  the  curb  and 
yell  across  to  you." 

This  being  manifestly  true,  he  had  to  make  the  best 
of  it,  and  so  rejoined, 

"  Well,  I'm  not  so  slow  now/' 

"  You  bet  you  're  not !  " 

"Which  way  do  you  like  better?" 

"  I  don't   know  but   I    like  the  other  way.  —  It 's 


3IO  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

"Thank  you.  Then  you'd  prefer  to  be  without 
me?" 

"  Oh,  I  don't  mean  that,  you  know.  Only  somehow 
I  did  kind  of  like  it.  I  guess  that 's  why  I  remembered 
you.  I  don't  generally  remember  fellows  I  see  at  the 
show." 

They  went  into  one  of  the  booths  of  the  cafe. 
Shortly  after,  for  some  reason  which  he  did  not 
analyse  —  perhaps  because  of  what  she  had  said  on 
meeting  him  —  he  left  her,  making  a  similar  engage- 
ment for  the  next  night. 


CHAPTER    XXI. 
THE   GOOD    FAIRY. 

PEGGY  BARTOL  had  not  made  her  second  visit  to 
Boston  a  long  one.  Her  mother  had  determined  to 
take  her  to  Philadelphia,  presumably  because  she  con- 
sidered a  course  of  the  Extempore  Club  and  the  Well- 
view  teas  a  fitter  penance  for  the  close  of  the  Lenten 
season  than  the  company  of  Harvard  Undergraduates 
and  the  not  altogether  surreptitious  trips  to  the  Boston 
theatres.  Accordingly,  the  day  after  his  meeting  with 
the  concert  girl,  Dick  received  a  demure  and  fragrant 
little  note  announcing  that  his  cousin  was  to  depart 
on  the  following  afternoon.  It  said  that,  since  she 
had  heard  almost  nothing  of  him  during  her  stay  in 
New  England,  he  might  wish  to  tell  her  whether  or  no 
he  was  still  extant,  in  case  his  parents  inquired  after 
the  fact.  "  As  you  evidently  were  not  glad  to  have 
me  come,"  it  concluded,  "  I  naturally  suppose  that 
you  will  be  glad  to  see  me  go.  If  you  are,  be  at  the 
Terminal  to-morrow  at  five." 

He  did  not  go.  Up  to  the  last  moment  he  vacil- 
lated. Then  his  courage  quite  failed.  He  put  the 
note  in  his  inside  pocket  and  stayed  in  Cambridge. 


312  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

It  would  hardly  have  comforted  his  soul  to  know 
that  his  cousin  did  not,  to  all  appearances,  miss  him. 
Hardy  was  there  and  Mallard,  and  they  performed  the 
requisite  duties  by  carrying  wraps  and  bags  quite  as 
well  as  he  could  have  done.  Peggy  did  ask  where  he 
was,  but  received  in  reply  little  that  was  definite. 

"  Dick 's  been  curing  himself  of  a  bad  case  of  love 
at  first  sight  for  the  past  few  months,"  said  Hardy, 
continuing  with  commendable  mendacity,  "  He  's  not 
been  fit  for  some  time.  Stays  in  his  room,  you  know, 
and  that  sort  of  thing  all  the  time." 

"  Really?"  said  Peggy,  with  a  scarcely  perceptible 
toss  of  her  head  and  settling  back  in  the  Pullman 
chair  wherein  they  had  seen  her  safely  ensconced. 

"  Oh  yes,"  broke  in  the  loquacious  Mallard,  "  when 
he  came  back  from  that  trip  to  your  uncle's  country- 
place  last  fall,  he  made  a  terrible  guy  of  himself. 
Went  in  for  reformation  and  other  similar  ideas,  but 
he  's  got  over  it  famously." 

Mrs.  Bartol  began  to  show  signs  of  nascent 
interest,  but  her  daughter,  upon  noting  this,  was 
apparently  not  so  much  concerned. 

"  I  'm  sure  the  train 's  going  to  start,"  she  said. 
"  You  had  better  get  off  right  away,  or  you  '11  have 
to  go  along  with  us."  And  the  two  men,  exceedingly 
loath,  obeyed. 

Jarvis  was  not,  however,  exactly  where  Mallard  had 
pictured  him.  Indeed,  had  they  been  but  a  little 


THE  GOOD  FAIRY.  313 

slower  in  their  return,  the  two  men  would  have  passed 
him  on  the  street  on  his  way  to  meet  Lily  Forrest. 
He  did  not  go  into  the  theatre,  however.  On  the 
contrary,  he  was  at  a  loss  how  to  kill  time  until  the 
play  was  over.  He  found  the  solitude  hard  to  bear. 
Even  when  with  most  women  he  felt  the  need  of  the 
Major's  company,  and  perhaps  it  was  because  she 
proved  an  exception  to  this  rule  that  he  took  pleasure 
in  his  new  acquaintance.  It  added  to  the  piquancy 
of  a  situation  otherwise  novel  enough.  At  all  events, 
on  this  second  night  he  merely  repeated  the  scenes 
of  the  one  preceding. 

So  was  it  continuously  during  her  two  weeks'  stay. 
She  made  charmingly  awkward  little  attempts  to 
accommodate  herself  and  her  language  to  it  all,  as  if 
used  to  nothing  else :  indeed,  as  if  that  poor  effort 
which  it  was  her  business  nightly  to  make,  that 
farcical  imitation  of  ladyhood  which  was  her  trade, 
was  also  her  natural  self.  He  said  to  himself  that  he 
kept  up  his  show  of  courtesy  only  because  it  amused 
him  to  treat  this  waif  as  if  he  were  talking  to  a  lady, 
—  to  some  woman  of  his  own  set  at  home.  Or,  per- 
haps, he  simply  liked  to  watch  the  effect  upon  her  of 
the  exaggerated  style  of  Chesterfieldian  courtesy  he 
saw  fit  to  adopt.  Perhaps  it  was  only  that  He  did  not 
know.  But  more  likely  it  was  educible  from  a  finer 
feeling  than  he  would  ever  have  attributed  to  any  one 
else,  much  less  to  himself.  She  was  so  slight  and 


314  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

prettily  frail.  He  was  never  consciously  ungallant  to 
any  woman  before  whom  he  saw  fit  to  drop  the  royal 
kerchief,  and  it  is  possible  that  in  this  case  there  was 
a  real  pity  in  his  heart  for  her,  —  some  trace  of  better 
sentiment  otherwise  lost  in  the  maelstrom  of  his  other 
and  more  tumultuous  sensations,  some  bit  of  sub- 
conscious recognition  of  a  good  woman  that  was  hid- 
den in  her,  almost  washed  out,  it  might  be,  in  her 
troublous  little  existence.  Certain  it  was  that  he 
could  not  change  his  bearing  and  that  she  unquestion- 
ingly  accepted  it  as  the  ordinary  manner  of  a  gentle- 
man to  his  equals  in  that  gilded  world  which  she 
knew  nothing  of. 

The  outward  woman  it  did  not  take  him  long  to 
learn.  His  bearing  soon  brought  from  her,  in  spite 
of  her  assumed  manner,  an  account  of  herself,  the 
sordidness  of  which  did  not  permit  a  doubt  of  its 
veracity;  and  when  he  had  heard  it  and  taken  into 
consideration  the  mode  of  life  it  suggested,  his  feeling 
toward  her  whole  class  was  considerably  softened. 

In  the  language  of  a  child  of  the  New  York  streets 
Lily  Forrest  told,  a  bit  at  a  time,  the  brief  history  of 
her  life.  She  was  really  little  more  than  twenty, 
though  hard  work,  rough  life,  late  hours,  and  dissi- 
pation had  made  her  look  ten  years  older.  She  had 
been  brought  up  in  a  tenement  house  and  married  at 
sixteen  to  money  in  the  shape  of  a  half  share  in  a 
Bowery  "  oyster  bay."  Her  husband  was  fifty  and 


THE   GOOD    FAIRY.  315 

drunken.  He  beat  her,  but  she  put  up  with  that  as 
a  natural  portion  of  the  marital  contract.  At  last  he 
knocked  her  senseless  with  an  oyster  knife  and, 
before  she  could  plead  in  his  behalf,  was  arrested  by 
a  passing  policeman.  As  a  witness  in  the  case  she 
was  afraid  to  swear  falsely  in  his  favour,  and  because 
she  would  not  do  so  he  was  sent  to  the  Island.  Her 
father  refused  to  take  her  back  with  him.  The  busi- 
ness went  to  ruin  and,  to  put  in  the  time  until  her 
husband  returned,  she  had  joined  her  first  burlesque 
troupe.  Hard  as  the  life  was,  she  had  found  it  pre- 
ferable to  that  she  had  formerly  known,  and  she  never 
again  bothered  about  affairs  domestic.  She  got  but 
ten  dollars  a  week  and  had  to  pay  her  own  hotel  bills 
and  clothe  herself  on  the  stage  as  well  as  off. 

In  his  half  satirical,  half  good-humoured  way,  Jarvis 
enjoyed  and  felt  for  her  in  these  confidences,  was 
amused  by  them,  in  fact,  almost  as  much  as  he  was 
by  the  posing  which  elicited  them.  It  was  something 
new,  too,  and  valuable  as  that,  if  as  nothing  else. 
Besides,  his  money,  once  much  more  than  abundant, 
was  low  at  last.  He  was  in  debt  and  the  amusement 
was  cheap  and  first  class  of  its  kind. 

He  would  take  off  her  miserable  cape  as  if  it  had 
been  some  gorgeous  ermine  opera  cloak;  he  would 
offer  her  beer  and  fill  her  glass  with  it  as  if  it  were 
at  least  Norman  champagne,  if  not  indeed  delicate 
Chateau  Margaux  or  exquisite  St.  Emilion.  A  thou- 


316  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

sand  little  attentions  he  paid  her  with  all  the  chivalry 
of  a  trained  carpet-knight.  His  manners  —  in  the 
New  England  sense  of  the  word  —  had  grown  rusty, 
and  it  entertained  him  to  exercise  them  where  their 
shortcomings  would  pass  unnoticed.  In  all  this  time, 
as  the  nights  sped  on,  he  never  approached  anything 
that  could  have  offended  the  delicacy  of  a  saint  or 
been  disrespectful  to  the  holiness  of  a  vestal  virgin. 

But  while  he  was  thus  amusing  himself,  he  did  not 
notice  the  change  that  was  taking  place  in  her.  He 
did  not  see  that  the  tired  eyes  were  growing  strangely 
big  and  wistful,  or  that  a  new  strain  had  come  into 
her  clear  voice. 

He  was  not  cruel  by  nature,  and  would  never  have 
dreamed  of  playing  with  a  human  heart  for  the  plea- 
sure of  the  sport ;  only  he  had  seen  so  much  baseness 
that  all  higher  feeling  was  blurred  and  out  of  focus 
for  him.  The  wide  eyes  that  followed  his  every 
motion,  the  open  mouth  with  pouting,  miniature  lips 
that  drank  in  his  every  word,  the  face  that  always 
wondered  and  admired,  all  were  hidden  from  him  or 
noticed  only  to  be  misconstrued. 

At  last  the  night  before  the  Easter  holiday  arrived. 
She  was  to  go  to  Worcester  the  next  day.  For  him 
there  had  been  an  uncomfortable  interview  with  his 
physician,  who  had  first  pronounced  him  to  be  in  a 
serious  condition  and  then  ordered  him  abroad. 

"  If  you  would  behave  yourself,  you  'd  be  all  right," 


THE    GOOD   FAIRY.  317 

the  man  of  medicine  had  grimly  concluded.  "  But  I 
suppose  that 's  too  much  to  ask." 

The  words  had  been  unpalatable,  but  were  hardly 
unexpected,  yet  he  had  not  formed  any  plans  for  the 
future  beyond  that,  feeling  he  could  not  face  Phila- 
delphia again,  he  had,  contrary  to  medical  advice, 
bought  his  ticket  for  New  York. 

His  parting  scene  with  Lily  began,  in  all  essentials, 
strongly  like  another  crucial  one  in  the  drama  of  the 
past  months.  Neither  spoke  much  as  they  sat  in  the 
narrow  booth  smoking  their  cigarettes  over  beer  and 
a  Welsh  rabbit.  Jarvis  was  thinking  that  it  was 
about  time  this  foolish  make-believe  was  brought 
to  an  end,  and  the  thoughts  of  the  girl,  though  un- 
intelligible to  him,  were  written  plainly  upon  her 
face. 

"  My  vacation  begins  to-morrow,"  he  said,  breaking 
a  silence  which  was  fast  becoming  unendurable. 

"I  suppose  you'll  go  to  Philadelphia?"  she  in- 
quired, looking  first  away  from  him  and  then  quickly 
up  into  his  face. 

But  he  did  not  catch  her  glance. 

"  No,"  he  replied.  "  I  shall  go  to  New  York  and 
enjoy  myself." 

"  Don't  do  that." 

"Why  not?" 

"  You  Ve  just  said  the  doctor  told  you  you  must  n't." 

"  Doctors  are  generally  liars." 


3l8  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

By  a  sudden  movement  she  flung  herself  forward 
and  caught  his  hand  in  both  of  hers. 

"  Take  me  with  you  !  "  she  cried. 

"  Great  Heavens,  what  do  you  mean?" 

"  Oh,  you  know  !     You  know  !  "  she  sobbed. 

There  were  tears  in  her  voice,  yet  in  her  eyes,  as 
she  looked  up  at  him,  there  was  but  love  and  pleading. 

"  I  Ve  never  had  anybody  treat  me  like  you  have," 
she  went  on  hurriedly,  holding  fast  to  his  cold  hand. 
"  I  never  knew  a  real  gentleman  before,  an'  I  love  you 
so  !  Oh,  I  love  you  so !  I  can't  go  back  to  this  hell 
again.  I  can't  do  it  an'  I  won't !  You  don't  know 
what  it  is !  Just  let  me  live  with  you,  please,  or 
get  me  a  place  where  I  can  see  you  once  in  a 
while !  " 

Jarvis  turned  away  his  face.  He  had  not  guessed 
at  this.  He  was  touched  and,  for  the  moment, 
tempted  too.  Then  he  laid  his  other  hand  on  hers 
and  said  kindly  enough, — 

"  It  can't  be  done,  dear,  it  really  can't." 

She  leaned  over  toward  him,  her  pink  face  flushed 
to  rose  red,  and  her  violet  eyes  gleaming  at  last  with 
the  diamonds  of  the  unshed  tears  between  the  tumbled 
black  locks  that  were  falling  over  them. 

"  Don't  say  that,"  she  pleaded,  "  why  can't  you?  " 

"Well  in  the  first  place,  I  have  n't  got  the  money. 
I  'm  head  over  ears  in  debt  as  it  is." 

"  But  it  won't  cost  nothing.     Just   get  me  a  job 


THE   GOOD   FAIRY.  319 

som  'eres  please,  please.  You  can  do  that.  An'  then 
I  '11  keep  myself.  I  'd  want  to.  I  '11  work  so  hard  ! 
An'  you  need  n't  ever  be  afraid  o'  my  ever  tellin'  on 
you.  I  just  want  to  be  near  you  always  an'  see  you 
sometimes  —  nothing  more  'n  that." 

He  shifted  uneasily  in  his  seat. 

"  But  I  shall  not  be  here  for  long  myself,"  he  said 
at  last.  "  I  'm  only  at  College  here,  you  know,  and  I 
hardly  think  I  shall  come  back  next  year.  The  doc- 
tor says  I  ought  to  go  abroad.  And  then  when  I 
come  back  to  this  country  I  should  probably  go  into 
business  in  Philadelphia  with  my  father." 

The  plan  shaped  itself  only  as  he  spoke,  but  for 
the  moment  it  seemed  the  natural  solution  of  his 
problem. 

"And  I  couldn't  very  well, —  we  could  n't  very  well 
arrange  it  there,"  he  added  gently. 

"You're  struck  on  some  swell  there.  That's  it, 
isn't  it?" 

Her  tone  was  half  fierce  and  she  had  sprung  to  her 
feet  glaring  across  at  him  with  both  clenched  little 
fists  resting  in  the  beer  suds  on  the  table.  It  was 
useless  to  temporise  further,  and  yet  if  he  told  the 
plain  truth  she  would  hardly  be  likely  to  understand 
it.  However,  there  appeared  to  be  no  other  way  out 
of  the  difficulty  so  —  though  if  he  had  to  be  killed, 
Jarvis  did  not  care  to  be  killed  in  such  a  place  —  he 
yet  determined  to  try  it.  Though  he  feared  for  his 


320  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

moral  courage  in  so  doing,  he  looked  up  at  her,  wait 
ing  his  answer.  She  was,  he  thought,  more  beautiful 
in  her  wrath  than  in  her  sorrow. 

Then  he  began  placidly  making  rings  on  the  table 
with  the  base  of  his  wet  tumbler.  Half  the  truth  he 
would  at  least  confess.  His  heart  was  strangely  full 
as  he  began. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  slowly  and  not  at  all  certainly,  "  I 
am  in  love  with  a  Philadelphia  girl." 

He  need  not  have  feared.  She  sank  back  into  her 
chair  and  for  a  minute  covered  her  face  with  her 
hands. 

He  had  grown  very  white  of  late  and  there  were 
heavy  lines  about  his  handsome  eyes.  He  was  too 
broken  to  stand  this.  His  conscience,  which  he  had 
so  long  flattered  himself  was  quite  dead,  rose  up  and 
smote  him.  He  could  not  bear  to  witness  pain  in 
any  form,  much  less  to  inflict  it.  Yet  the  thing  was 
impossible.  He  simply  could  not,  in  any  sense  afford 
it.  There  was  still  one  means  of  consolation  and  he 
decided  to  try  that. 

He  came  round  the  table  and  sat  beside  her. 

"Lily,"  he  said,  trying  to  take  her  fingers  from 
before  her  face. 

She  resisted  a  moment  and  then  flung  back  her 
head  and  shook  the  curls  out  of  her  eyes.  She  was 
laughing. 

"Did  I   fool   you?"    she   asked.     "You're   easy! 


THE   GOOD   FAIRY.  321 

You  must  take  me  for  a  soft  thing.     Ring  for  some 
more  drinks.     You  're  still  slow,  after  all." 

He  was  not  altogether  pleased  to  find  that  in  just 
this  manner  he  had  not  broken  her  heart.  He  hated 
to  be  tricked  and  dreaded  being  laughed  at.  But  he 
rang  the  bell  and  when  she  asked  for  a  whiskey  and 
soda,  he  instead  ordered  a  flask,  and  joined  her  in  the 
drink. 

"  I  see  your  finish,"  she  said  as  she  tossed  off  the 
first  glass. 

He  was  silent,  and,  watching  her,  he  soon  realised 
that  her  bravado  was  assumed.  By  the  time  the 
supply  of  liquor  had  begun  to  diminish,  he  noticed 
that  she,  poor  girl,  was  not  yet  actress  enough  to 
carry  out  her  part. 

He  went  across  to  her  cheap  hotel  and  up  to  her 
room  with  her. 

It  was  a  miserable  little  place  under  the  roof. 
There  was  one  bed,  a  shabby  trunk,  and  a  bureau  the 
drawers  of  which  stood  open  and  nearly  empty  ex- 
cept for  a  few  soiled  collars  and  a  broken  box  of 
powder  that  had  strewn  its  contents  in  little  white 
mounds  all  over  the  pine  boards. 

A  few  months  before  all  this  would  have  disgusted 
Jarvis;  now  he  expected  nothing  different  and  was 
no  more  surprised  than  he  was  to  find  that  through 
the  window  the  stars  were  shining  in  the  purple 
sky. 

21 


322  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

For  a  few  moments  he  looked  out  at  that  small 
patch  of  heaven  vouchsafed  him  through  the  filthy 
maze  of  city  roofs,  and  tried  hard  to  fathom  the  mess- 
age of  the  pale  radiance  that  dimly  struggled  toward 
him  there.  He  was  sober  enough  now.  In  his  heart 
a  great  pity  was  slowly  rising ;  a  new  sense  was  born 
in  him,  the  great  sixth  sense  for  sacrifice  that  alone 
completes  the  human  organism. 

What,  after  all,  was  he,  to  scorn  this  poor  soiled 
daisy  struggling  up  between  the  rough  cobbles  of  a 
busy  street?  Was  it  not  far  better  than  he?  By  what 
right  then  did  he  now  withhold  from  it  its  one  small 
gleam  of  sunshine  ?  By  what  right  did  he  deny  it  the 
one  inalienable  right  of  every  life  —  the  right  to  love? 
He  could  give  her,  it  was  true,  at  best  but  poor  sun- 
light and  but  little.  Yet  it  was  his  chance  as  much  as 
hers.  What  light  there  was  in  him  was  meant  to  be 
given, -and  to  whom  else  could  he  give  it  now? 
Here  was  one  who  at  least  loved  him  and  whom  he 
could  always  cherish.  Spoiled  flower  and  spoiled 
sunlight,  —  it  was  meet. 

"  Lily,"  he  said  with  sudden  resolution,  moving 
toward  the  door,  "  I  must  be  getting  back  to  Cam- 
bridge. But  look  here,  here  's  a  ticket  to  New  York. 
You  take  it  and  meet  me  at  the  station  and  —  we  '11 
try  to  make  things  go  the  way  you  want  them." 

She  took  -the  ticket  slowly ;  looked  at  it  an  instant 
uncertainly ;  took  a  cigarette  from  the  bureau  —  and. 


THE  GOOD   FAIRY.  323 

thrusting  the  ticket  into  the  flaring  gas,  proceeded  to 
use  it  as  a  spill. 

"  Good  Lord,  girl !  What  are  you  doing  that  for?  " 
he  cried. 

"  So  you  can  get  through  passage  to  Philadelphia 
and  go  home  where  you  belong.  Good  night." 

She  was  blowing,  leisurely,  smoke  from  between  her 
lips  and  smiling  at  him  as  she  spoke. 

But  as  their  glances  met,  the  smile  gradually  died 
away  from  the  small,  round  face ;  the  corners  of  the 
puckered  mouth  drooped  lower ;  the  big  eyes  winked 
and  filled  and  twitched,  and  her  slight  frame  was 
shaken  with  convulsive  sobs. 

Dick  tried  to  quiet  her,  but  in  vain. 

"  No,  no  !  "  she  sobbed.  "  Go  away  !  Go  home  ! 
Don't  stay  here,  or  I  can't  stand  it.  Only  go  home  !  " 

"  And  why  should  I  do  that?  " 

She  lifted  her  tear-stained  face  and  looked  straight 
into  his  as  she  put  his  hand  gently  to  her  lips. 

"  Why?"  she  cried,  in  sudden  violence.  "  Because 
you  Ve  got  to  make  something  of  yourself.  Go  home 
an'  fix  it  all  up  and  then  come  back  to  College  and 
finish  like  a  man.  What  're  you  wastin'  yourself  for? 
Cut  those  smart  kids  that  are  runnin'  'round  with  you. 
Do  you  think  they  care  anything  about  you  ?  They  're 
not  the  gang  you  were  with  last  year.  I  know  that. 
You  're  just  a  bigger  man  than  they  are  an'  they  want 
to  be  called  your  friends,  that 's  all.  You  don't  think 


324  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

they  'd  care  a  snap  of  their  fingers  for  you  if  you 
weren't  anybody,  or  had  no  money,  do  you?  My 
God,  you  'd  be  better  off  with  me  than  with  them !  " 

An  actress?  As  she  lay  there,  risen  now  upon  one 
arm,  her  face  flushed,  her  voice  choked,  her  whole  body 
on  fire,  she  was  something  far  more  subtle  than  that 
She  was  superbly  her  real  self;  she  was  perfectly  a 
woman. 

"  Go  back,"  she  continued,  with  a  sweeping  gesture. 
"  Go  back  to  Philadelphia.  Try  for  the  girl,  anyhow. 
No  man  can  tell  what  he  can  do  till  he  's  got  the  girl 
he  wants.  Remember  that.  Try  !  Don't  give  up  till 
you  Ve  tried.  No  woman  on  God's  earth  would  want 
a  man  till  he  did,  and  no  man  would  be  worth  her.  If 
you  get  her,  College  '11  be  easy.  It'll  all  be  easy 
then.  It 's  right  an'  —  an'  —  try  just  once  more  — 
for  me !  " 

He  stood  there,  arrested  in  the  flood  of  action  and 
the  whole  truth  burst  upon  him  and  shook  him  like  a 
sapling  in  a  storm.  But  he  was  still  willing  to  pursue 
that  course  that  had  come  to  him  as  he  looked  from 
her  window. 

"Are  — you  — sure?"  he  asked  at  last.  "Do  — 
you  —  advise  —  this  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  calmly  now.  "  Because  — because 
you  belong  to  a  better  woman  than  I  am." 

For  a  moment  more  he  hesitated.  Then  he 
smoothed  back  from  the  white  forehead  those  tangled, 


THE   GOOD   FAIRY.  325 

troublesome  black  curls  and  gravely  kissed  the  place 
that  they  had  covered. 

"  A  better  woman  than  you  ?  "  he  repeated,  as  he 
opened  the  door  to  close  it  upon  her  forever,  "  in 
all  the  world  I  know  of  only  one." 


CHAPTER  XXII. 
HALF   GODS   GO. 

IN  Philadelphia  Peggy  had  been  undergoing  her 
penance  with  commendable  endurance,  Some  of  its 
forms  she  seemed  even  to  enjoy.  Few  places  can  be 
duller  than  is  this  particular  city  at  this  particular 
season  —  its  Midwinter  Ball  is  not  so  bad  as  its  Lent 
—  yet  Mistress  Bartol  was  one  of  those  happy,  one 
would  say  almost  typical,  American  girls,  who  could 
find  amusement  even  in  Kansas  City. 

Taking  luncheon  at  the  Wellview,  when  it  was  sud- 
denly announced  that  a  visiting  heir-apparent  was 
drinking  beer  in  the  next  room,  she  preferred  watch- 
ing two  well-known  society  women  leave  their  tables 
to  look  at  him,  even  to  looking  at  him  herself.  She 
went,  always  with  her  mother  and  generally  with  Mrs. 
Jarvis,  to  a  sale  of  hats  and  bonnets  in  a  Walnut  Street 
drawing  room.  She  even  attended  that  threatened 
meeting  of  the  Extempore  Club,  where  her  mother 
assisted  in  fixing,  once  and  for  all  time,  the  sun  in  his 
proper  place  in  the  solar  system.  She  had  formerly 
been  vaguely  impressed  that  this  assignment  to  his 
station  of  the  eye  of  day  had  been  accomplished  some 


HALF  GODS   GO.  327 

few  aeons  before.  But  under  the  sway  of  much  elo- 
quence her  erroneous  ideas  were  softly  dispersed  and 
she  found  solace  in  a  tranquil  nap. 

Indeed,  Mrs.  Bartol  was  one  of  the  good  souls  who 
are  secure  in  the  thought  that  their  daughters  Jill  will 
not  break  their  crowns  except  in  the  company  of  a 
Jack  predestined.  Yet  it  is  unfortunately  a  fact  that 
every  Jill  is  most  apt  to  have  two  or  even  more  casual 
Jacks  in  attendance  and  that,  at  any  rate,  was  Peggy's 
case.  Among  her  admirers  Bert  Hardy,  who  had  got 
away  from  Cambridge  a  trifle  in  advance  of  his  friends, 
took  a  high  place.  Just  at  this  time  he  was,  in  truth, 
seeing  as  much  of  her  as,  for  instance,  Jarvis  should 
have  seen.  Not  that  he  was  at  first  very  definite. 
Somehow  his  heart  was  too  young  for  that.  But,  al- 
though on  her  side  she  did  little  that  the  most  critical 
could  call  conscious  encouragement,  he  found  that  he 
was  entertaining  for  her  that  boy's  love  which  is  the 
most  beautiful  of  all  our  transient  passions. 

Yet,  as  was  characteristic  of  the  lad,  he  would  not 
tell  her.  Once  or  twice  they  drove  together  in  the 
Park;  they  met  and  chatted  at  a  quiet  tea,  and  on 
the  rare  occasions  when  the  season  permitted  of  the 
theatre,  he  had  always  tried  to  get  a  chair  close  to 
hers.  But  that  was  all.  He  wanted  to  be  near  her 
and  to  hear  her  talk.  In  a  strange,  pure  way  he 
worshipped  her  as  some  new  deity  and  to  the  fact 
that  others  should  so  worship  her  he  attached  no 


328  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

more   significance   than   that   they   should   kneel   in 
church. 

Once  only  did  he  approach  words.  They  were  far 
out  Broad  Street  in  an  automobile  which  Hardy  was 
himself  driving,  and  she  had  said,  innocently  enough, 
that  she  "  could  go  on  this  way  forever." 

"  You  could  ?  "  he  breathlessly  took  her  up. 

"  I  could  indeed." 

"Forever?" 

"  And  a  day,"  she  laughed. 

"  Well,"  he  hesitated,  "  do  —  you  mean  in  the  way 
of  Browning's  '  Last  Ride  Together?"' 

It  was  an  ingenious  way  of  putting  it.  But  unluck- 
ily for  him,  Peggy  did  not  know  Browning  at  all, 
except  perhaps  as  a  name  to  symbolise  the  unknow- 
able, and  so,  as  she  had  thus  far  imagined  that  he 
was,  like  so  many  men  she  had  met,  merely  a  "  talker," 
she  gave  him  a  thoughtless  "  Yes." 

The  result  to  him  was  something  of  an  emotional 
tragedy.  At  the  moment  he  could  speak  no  further, 
but  his  whole  attitude  was  so  far  changed  as  to  make 
him  resolve  to  grasp  the  very  next  opportunity  that 
offered. 

Meanwhile  Peggy  had  small  chance  of  forgetting 
Dick.  There  was,  of  course,  constant  reference  to 
him  and  when  Mrs.  Jarvis  managed  to  ask  about  him, 
as  she  occasionally  managed  to  do,  Peggy  succeeded 
in  suppressing  her  mother's  too  truthful  statements  of 


HALF  GODS   GO.  329 

that  young  man's  sins  of  omission,  until  she  finally 
came  to  like  the  strategy  which  this  manoeuvring 
required. 

It  is,  however,  a  question  whether  she  would  have 
continued  her  good  offices  had  she  known  just  what 
was  the  cause  that  made  them  necessary ;  but  Jarvis, 
at  all  events,  soon  arrived  on  the  scene  of  action,  and 
proved  quite  able  to  take  his  defence  into  his  own 
hands.  Emotional  both  from  instinct  and  training, 
few  things  could  have  so  acted  upon  his  temperament 
and  so  forced  him  into  other  paths  as  just  that  inci- 
dent of  Lily  Forrest.  Had  the  adventure  occurred 
to  any  one  else,  he  would  have  treated  it  very  differ- 
ently. Generally  the  affections  of  such  unfortunates 
as  the  pretty  chorus  girl  are,  as  he  had  said  of  Mary 
Braddock's,  as  notoriously  transient  as  they  are  con- 
spicuously violent.  That  the  good  will  of  such  a  per- 
son should  serve  as  a  gospel  of  redemption  or  that  her 
admonition  should  enforce  a  change  of  conduct  in  any 
of  his  friends  Jarvis  would  have  been  the  last  to  grant. 
But  the  thing  had  not  happened  to  anybody  else.  It 
had  happened  to  Richard  Jarvis,  and  that  just  at  a  time 
when,  little  as  he  dreamed  it,  this  young  man  was 
most  ready  to  receive  and  obey  without  question  any 
promise  of  rescue  or  command  to  hope.  Lily  For- 
rest's life  was  not,  then,  lived  in  vain.  She  whom 
Jarvis  did  not  love  had  triumphed  where  all  that  he 
had  loved  had  failed.  Why?  Because  she  had  loved 


330  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

him.  Because,  through  that  power  of  loving  which 
-—since  it  can  create  love  —  can  do  more  than  any- 
thing else  in  all  life,  she  had  given  him  the  will  for 
sacrifice  and,  denying  the  offering  to  her  desecrated 
altar,  had  bade  him  take  his  own  burned  desires  to  a 
shrine  worthy  of  their  death.  For  she,  alas,  knew 
how  terrible  a  sacrifice  it  was  —  knew  it  as,  to  our 
sorrow,  no  pure  woman  can  ever  know  —  and  she 
knew  also  that,  once  the  goddess  was  revealed,  there 
would  be  no  other  in  all  the  heaven  for  Dick. 

He  had  been  sated  and  disgusted  with  his  life,  will- 
ing that  it  should  end  or  change  in  any  way,  though 
hopeless  that  it  should  change  for  the  better.  He 
had  become  so  thoroughly  skeptical  of  everything 
human  that,  had  there  been  leisure  to  reflect,  it  is 
probable  he  would  even  still  have  hesitated  and 
doubted  until  both  the  courage  and  the  desire  to 
obey  had  been  lost.  But  his  trunks  were  packed  and 
everything  in  readiness  for  departure.  His  money 
was  short,  too,  and  he  settled  the  matter  by  securing 
a  through  ticket  for  home  immediately  upon  leaving 
his  good  angel  of  the  concert-hall. 

By  the  time  he  had  seated  himself  in  the  train  next 
morning  and  was  watching  the  racing  telegraph  posts, 
between  half-hearted  perusals  of  contradictory  Chinese 
war  news,  this  change  had  actually  taken  place ;  but 
it  had  taken  place  too  late,  and  he  congratulated 
himself  on  having  escaped  that  otherwise  inevitable 


HALF  GODS   GO.  331 

period  of  wavering  which,  much  more  than  the  com- 
parative relief  of  action,  is,  above  all  things,  torturing 
to  the  naturally  indecisive.  He  did  laugh  at  himself 
a  little  and  reflect  that  he  must  be  still  very  young, 
being  still  so  very  hopeful;  yet  he  could  not  but 
admit  that  the  new  idea  suggested  to  him  on  the 
night  previous  was  far  more  tenable  than  that  which 
had  prompted  his  former  attempt  toward  freedom. 
It  must,  patently,  be  easier  to  reform  having  won  a 
pure  woman,  than  to  do  so  in  the  hope  that,  once  the 
reformation  was  accomplished,  the  woman  might  be 
won.  He  forgot  that  on  the  former  occasion  he  had 
been  as  absolutely  certain  of  success  as  if  the  battle 
had  been  his  from  the  outset.  It  sufficed  now  that 
there  would  be  a  change  which,  just  because  it  was  a 
change,  would  be  more  than  acceptable. 

That  alteration  had  by  no  means  come  as  yet.  He 
had  grown  so  nervously  self-conscious,  so  preternatur- 
ally  introspective,  that  it  seemed  as  if  his  only  reflex 
actions  were  those  necessary  merely  for  the  continu- 
ance of  existence.  Noting  the  pulse  of  his  tempera- 
ment and  waiting  for  that  change  to  come,  he  failed 
to  understand  that  the  only  way  to  make  it  possible 
was  to  cease  looking  for  it.  Instead,  he  sat  there 
analysing  his  impressions,  connotating,  indorsing,  and 
docketing  them,  balancing  his  mental  ledgers  to  see 
how  he  stood.  For  instance,  he  was  disturbed  to  find 
that  the  chief  impression  left  by  the  coloured  porter 


332  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

was  that  the  palms  of  his  hands  resembled  the  bellies 
of  dead  fish.  He  had,  then,  to  grant  that  very  little  of 
his  morbidness  had  vanished  over  night.  But,  on  the 
credit  side,  he  found  himself  taking  pleasure  in  the 
field  and  sky,  both  fresh  with  the  new  life  of  spring, 
and  he  began  to  hope  that  something  of  that  new  life 
and  strength  and  sweetness  would  sooner  or  later  be 
imparted  to  him.  It  had  not  been  imparted  yet,  it 
was  true,  but  there  was,  as  the  Wolf  observed  to  Red 
Riding  Hood,  plenty  of  time. 

Gradually,  however,  he  ceased  to  take  note  of  the 
faces  around  or  the  country  through  which  he  sped. 
The  stuffy  air  of  the  parlour-car,  the  women  with  dis- 
ordered hair,  asleep  in  every  variety  of  uncomfortable 
positions;  the  men  reading  through  their  stacks  of 
newspapers  for  the  third  time,  or  trying  to  interest 
themselves  in  the  cheap  story  of  the  newsboy,  and 
slowly  and  apathetically  becoming  resigned  to  the 
discovery  that  they  were  below  even  that  grade  of 
intellectual  enjoyment,  —  these  things  were  lost  upon 
him.  When  the  waiter  came  up  and  hesitatingly 
placed  a  bill  of  fare  before  him,  Jarvis  remained 
wrapped  in  his  own  thoughts  for  a  moment  or  two 
and  then  awoke  only  to  stare  blankly  first  at  the 
negro,  then  at  the  card.  The  rest  of  the  time  his 
eyes  were  fixed  steadily  on  the  chair-back  before  him 
as  if  he  found  the  study  of  its  pattern  of  unusual 
human  interest  and  importance,  and  yet  he  received 


HALF  GODS   GO.  333 

absolutely  no  impression  of  the  figure,  colour,  or 
texture. 

They  steamed  past  the  endless  streets  of  Providence 
and  on  to  the  coast.  The  crimson  sunlight  on  the 
seas  streamed  in  upon  him  and  he  turned  to  draw  the 
curtain.  The  dancing  waters  were  blue  and  green 
and  gold,  silver-ribbed  and  happy ;  white  sails  were 
scudding  before  the  stiff  noon  breeze;  and  Long 
Island  in  dim  purple  outline  was  lying  like  a  sleeping 
whale  at  rest  upon  the  surface.  The  stone-fenced 
farms  of  Connecticut  grew  less  and  less  barren  as  they 
made  for  the  south  and  finally  the  dirty  "  yards  "  of 
Harlem  filled  the  train  with  coal-dust. 

All  the  while  they  were  being  jolted  on  to  the  boat 
and  when  the  other  passengers,  with  the  exception  of 
a  pair  of  timid  lovers,  went  on  deck  to  watch  the 
panorama  of  the  city's  water-front,  Jarvis  remained  in 
the  darkened  car  with  the  thumping  of  the  engines 
for  company.  He  caught  a  departing  glimpse  of 
dazzling  white  New  York  beside  its  sparkling  river 
and  then,  at  last,  worn  out  by  his  reflections,  he  fell 
into  a  troubled,  restless  sleep  as  the  green  meadow- 
lands  and  hopelessly  commonplace  towns  of  New 
Jersey  gave  place  to  the  suburban  monstrosities  of 
Philadelphia.  He  awoke  only  as  they  came  roaring 
into  Broad  Street  Station. 

In  his  prevailing  state  of  mind  he  was  not  inclined 
to  quarrel  with  the  town  on  any  grounds  whatever. 


334  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

Yet  Peggy  he  discovered  even  less  gracious  than  when 
last  he  saw  her.  She  had  been  ready  enough  to  con- 
done his  offenses  before  others,  but  appeared  deter- 
mined that  he  should  pay  the  last  penalty  to  her. 
His  parents,  however,  were  really  rejoiced  to  see  him. 
His  father  was  proud  of  his  football  and  his  mother 
of  his  looks,  so  that  both  were  glad  to  forgive  short- 
comings that,  to  say  the  truth,  they  had  either 
overlooked  at  the  time  or  long  since  forgotten. 
Accordingly,  the  fattened  calf  was  slain  and  Dick 
began  to  find  everything  very  bearable  —  except,  of 
course,  the  person  on  whose  account  he  had  come. 

She  was  entirely  too  severe  and  there  was  evident 
in  her  a  certain  new  aloofness  which  he  did  not  like. 
Formerly  she  had  always  been  too  militant,  but  now 
she  appeared  to  avoid  even  battling  with  him,  so  that 
when  a  rencontre  did  occur,  Dick  adopted  the  policy 
of  the  Spaniards  in  the  last  Cuban  rebellion  and  acted 
entirely  on  the  defensive.  The  result  was  nil  and, 
after  one  daring  and  equally  unsatisfactory  attempt  at 
a  change  of  tactics,  Jarvis  sought  council  of  the  Major, 
who  was  then  spending  a  part  of  the  brief  vacation  in 
Philadelphia. 

The  fellow,  as  Dick  knew,  was,  in  spite  of  his  dis- 
gusting affectations,  all  right  at  bottom,  and  was  will- 
ing enough  to  give  practical  advice.  Not  that  Jarvis 
was  his  friend,  as  he  was  careful  to  explain.  He  was 
neither  strong  enough  nor  poor  enough  to  be  able  to 


HALF  GODS   GO.  335 

afford  the  luxury  of  friends,  but  he  considered  Dick 
an  amusing  study,  he  said,  and  he  would  be  willing 
to  sacrifice  a  few  of  his  precious  thoughts  upon  this 
desert  air. 

"  I  don't  care  why  you  came,  so  you  're  here,"  said 
Jarvis  as,  after  the  play,  they  sat  in  the  cafe  of  a 
South  Broad  Street  hotel.  "  I  want  the  advice  of 
somebody  who's  disinterested  and  knows  the  world." 

"  Knowing  the  world,"  replied  the  Major,  "  always 
means  knowing  women.  —  I  don't." 

"  Yes,  you  do.  I  might  as  well  tell  you  the  truth 
at  once.  I  'm  in  love." 

"  That's  no  new  thing.  I  know  whom  you  mean, 
and  I  know  you  Ve  been  in  love  with  her  since  the 
first  time  you  met  her  a  year  ago  last  fall.  Any 
idiot  could  see  that." 

"  Perhaps  it 's  because  I  'm  not  an  idiot  that  I 
couldn't" 

"  Not  likely.  Most  probably  you  did  n't  take  the 
trouble  to  look  properly." 

"  Well,  at  any  rate,  I  'm  in  love  with  her  and  she 
has  turned  me  down  so  regularly  that  I  don't  know 
what  to  make  of  it" 

"  Make  the  best  of  it." 

"  Oh,  don't  laugh  at  me." 

"  I  never  laugh  at  any  one.  The  object  of  it  is  too 
apt  to  notice  it  and  cease  to  be  amusing." 

"  Well,  don't  behave  in  this  way,  whatever  you  call 


336  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

it.  You  would  n't  if  you  were  in  my  place.  All 
women  are  wonderful,  but  this  woman  is  the  most 
wonderful  I  have  ever  met." 

"  Cheer  up.  There  still  remain  in  the  world  a  few 
million  you  have  n't  met.  How  did  this  one  turn  you 
down  ?  That 's  the  point." 

"  Oh,  every  way !  " 

"  Let  me  hear  one  way." 

"I'll  let  you  hear  the  latest.  But  make  no  mis- 
take. She  is  a  good  girl  and  I  love  her." 

"  I  Ve  neither  doubt  nor  objection  for  I  noticed 
that  she  did  n't  call  the  Yard  a  campus,  did  n't  ex- 
press the  slightest  curiosity  to  see  Lowell's  place  or 
Longfellow's,  and  did  n't  once  inquire  after  the 
Washington  Elm.  She  did  n't  take  to  your  cheap 
sports  and  has  no  use  for  boy  cynics  like  myself —  or 
at  least  what  I  used  to  be  —  the  most  nauseating  form 
of  youth  imaginable.  I  Ve  no  doubt  she  '11  allow  you 
to  continue  smoking  in  bed  and  while  you  dress  and 
let  you  kick  your  clothes  about  the  floor  as  of  old.  — 
Go  on." 

"  Well,  it  was  in  putting  on  her  coat." 

"What  was? — Oh  yes,  I  recollect.  You  prob- 
ably did  n't  know  the  art.  It  is  one.  I  thought  of 
writing  an  exposition  on  it  for  22.  There  was  one 
on  the  English  stroke  the  other  day  and  that 's  a 
complicated  thing,  of  course,  but  it  does  n't  need 
explanation  half  as  much." 


HALF   GODS   GO.  337 

"Well,  I  dare  say  you're  a  past  master.  How- 
ever—" 

"And  no  one  else  in  the  course  is?  I  suppose 
that 's  why  nobody  else  tried  it.  Or  else  everybody 
was  afraid  to  show  his  shortcomings  in  that  line 
before  the  handsome  and  experienced  instructors." 

Evidently  the  man  was  bound  to  have  his  way,  so 
Jarvis  resignedly  asked,  — 

"Well,  explain  it." 

"  I'm  going  to.  There  are  two  leading  methods; 
the  right  way  and  the  safe  way.  By  the  right  I 
mean  the  technically  correct,  not  the  more  morally 
defensible  method.  I  don't  propose  to  enter  into  the 
morals  of  the  question." 

"  No,  please  don't." 

"  Because  I  Ve  found  the  devil  '11  generally  claim  his 
own.  Only,  I  want  you  to  discriminate  between  the 
right  way  as  I  have  defined  it  and  the  safe  way  as  I 
shall  propound  it  It's  only  necessary  to  bear  in 
mind  that  the  right  way  is  not  the  safe  way  and  that 
the  safe  way  is  not  the  right." 

"  Well,  to  speak  of  the  right." 

"  Then,  the  girl  will  generally  pick  up  her  coat  and 
hold  it  so,  —  dangling  helpless." 

"  She  did  !  " 

"  If  she  is  an  expert  she  can  so  arrange  it  that  there 
will  be  a  certain  imploring  expression  in  the  very 
hang  of  the  coat  At  this  stage  don't  offer  to  help. 

22 


338  JARVIS   OF    HARVARD. 

So  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  discover,  the  highest 
authorities  agree  that  it  is  better  to  be  occupied  with 
your  own  gloves  and  quite  oblivious  to  the  petition 
implied  in  the  droop  of  the  coat." 

"  My  experience  bears  out  your  theory." 
"  There  then  follow  a  few  moments  of  silence." 
"  There  did." 

"  During  which  you  feel  the  girl's  eyes  are  fixed 
upon  you.  I  say  you  feel  it,  because  your  own 
gaze  is  bent  intently  upon  your  glove  which  you 
are  regarding  with  a  steady,  unwavering  kind  of 
admiration." 

"  That 's  all  very  well,  but  what  if  she  —  " 
"  Ask  you  to  help  ?  Of  course  she  will  not.  She 
will  begin  to  put  the  coat  on  for  herself.  You  here- 
upon look  up,  exclaim,  '  Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon  ! '  — 
'  How  foolish  of  me  ! '  —  '  Do  let  me  help  you  ! '  -  —  or 
some  equally  original  and  striking  phrase,  adding 
perhaps  that  those  gloves  are  '  such  a  bore.'  The 
girl  replies,  '  Never  mind,  she  can  do  it  perfectly  well 
herself.'  If  there  is  an  element  of  sarcasm  in  her 
tone,  it  is  perhaps  well  to  let  her  struggle  with  the 
task  for  a  while  before  you  insist  upon  helping.  If, 
however,  the  words  show  a  proper  humility,  you  may 
set  to  at  once.  Authorities  differ  as  to  whether  you 
had  better  or  not  draw  off  your  gloves  before  assist- 
ing. I  think  myself  that  the  lover  of  art  for  art's  sake 
generally  handles  art  without  gloves." 


HALF  GODS  GO.  339 

The  Major  was  rapidly  warming  to  the  subject  and 
Jarvis  hopelessly  allowed  him  to  proceed. 

"  Now,  step  gracefully  behind  the  girl ;  grip  the 
collar  firmly  with  both  hands  about  two  inches  from 
the  centre,  holding  the  coat  far  enough  back  from  the 
girl  to  necessitate  her  taking  a  step  backward  to  get 
into  it.  How  close  to  your  own  coat  you  may  hold 
hers  depends  on  the  girl.  As  in  the  making  of  bread, 
judgment  and  experience  are  the  only  guides.  Be 
sure  that  you  hold  the  jacket  tight.  There  is  con- 
siderable struggling  and  the  jacket  will  get  away 
from  you  if  you  don't  hold  firmly. 

"  It  is  not  necessary  to  warn  against  any  attempt 
at  conversation  at  this  point.  You  will  find  it  impos- 
sible to  talk.  The  girl  grasps  the  left  sleeve  of  her 
waist  by  her  left  fingers  and  the  right  sleeve  with 
the  right  fingers,  having  the  respective  thumbs  pro- 
jecting at  right  angles.  She  then  makes  two  or  three 
abortive  attempts  with  her  left  to  hit  the  opening  to 
the  coat-sleeve,  succeeding  the  fourth  or  fifth  time, 
the  right  arm  meanwhile  pointing  directly  ahead  of 
her.  The  same  process  is  then  repeated  with  that 
arm,  there  is  a  '  general  convulsion '  of  the  shoulders 
and  the  thing  is  done.  There  remains  only  the  tuck- 
ing in  of  the  sleeves  which  every  man  can  do  best 
for  himself. 

"  After  describing  all  this  in  my  exposition,  I  shall 
then  proceed  to  the  safe  method,  which  is  the  simpler 


340  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

and  the  one  I  generally  myself  pursue.  It  is,  to  pick 
up  the  girl's  coat ;  hand  it  graciously  to  her,  and  then 
retreat  the  length  of  the  room.  In  most  cases  it  is 
best  to  place  a  table  between  yourself  and  the  girl. 
Within  this  tower  of  strength  occupy  yourself  with 
your  own  coat  and  let  the  girl  take  care  of  hers.  If 
you  know  any  prayers,  it  might  be  well  to  recite  them. 
If  she  asks  you  to  help  her,  refuse  calmly  but  firmly. 
It  is  the  only  way  with  some  girls.  That  is  the  safe 
way  of  helping  a  girl  on  with  her  coat." 

"  Well,"  said  Jarvis,  breathlessly  grasping  his  oppor- 
tunity, "  you  can  use  my  case  for  exemplification. 
The  other  evening  I  helped  my  cousin  on  with  her 
coat,  as  I  was  telling  you.  By  instinct  I  followed 
pretty  much  the  rules  of  your  first  method  —  " 

"  I  should  have  added  that  to  occupy  your  mind 
you  might  have  gone  over  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
stanzas  of  '  The  Scholar  Gipsey '  while  you  were 
doing  it." 

"  Oh,  I  got  along  fairly  well  as  it  was,  thank  you, 
until  the  coat  was  really  on.  Then  I  turned  to  look 
'round  for  my  hat  and  she  said,  'Well?'  I  wheeled 
about  again  and  there  she  was  standing  as  I  had  left 
her,  the  picture  of  discomfort." 

"  I  know,"  said  the  Major,  "  Head  thrust  forward 
and  arms  extended  from  the  sides  at  an  angle  of  forty- 
five  degrees." 

"  She  said,  '  Well '  again,  and  I  said  '  I  beg  your 


HALF  GODS  GO.  341 

pardon  ?  '  and  she  asked  me  if  I  was  n't  going  to  tuck 
in  the  sleeves." 

"  There  you  were  !  " 

"  Of  course  I  had  to  do  it.  I  was  behind  her  and  a 
little  to  her  right.  As  I  was  quite  inexperienced,  it 
did  n't  occur  to  me  to  step  over  to  the  other  side,  so  I 
had  to  lean  over  the  right  shoulder  to  tuck  in  the  left 
sleeve.  She  submitted.  Then  she  said,  '  You  might 
have  done  that  from  the  other  side,  don't  you  think?' 
Of  course,  I  said,  '  Very  well,'  and  stepping  accord- 
ingly to  the  left  shoulder  leaned  over  to  tuck  in  the 
right  sleeve.  Just  then  Peggy  lifted  her  face,  I  sup- 
pose to  arraign  my  awkwardness  —  " 

"  Do  you  think  you  ought  to  tell  me  this?"  cried 
the  Major  in  well-feigned  horror. 

"  I  want  to  get  your  opinion,  I  want  her  to  accept 
me  as  a  husband.  I  know  you  're  a  stone  wall  and 
I  'm  in  love." 

"  Well,  you  should  n't  have  done  it,  you  know." 

"  Oh,  I  know  it,  but  it  was  all  the  fault  of  those 
sleeves  that  bag  at  the  bottom.  They  catch  so  easily 
in  the  coat  lining." 

"  Ahem  !  "  said  the  Major. 

"  She  has  n't  spoken  to  me  since,  until  last  night  at 
the  Sirron  dinner  —  a  very  quiet  and  small  affair  — 
she  was  next  me  and  had  to.  Then,  apropos  of 
nothing,  she  observed  that  rumor  had  it  those  big 
sleeves  would  n't  last  in  fashion  much  longer.  I  said 


342  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

fervently  and  truly  that  I  was  glad  of  it,  and  —  what 
do  you  think?  —  she  just  turned  up  her  nose,  you 
know  that  nose  —  and  said,  '  You  're  not  very  com- 
plimentary to-night.'  Now,  what  the  deuce  does  she 
mean  by  that  sort  of  thing?  " 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

THE   NEW   DISPENSATION. 

JARVIS'  question  was  exactly  the  kind  the  Major 
most  delighted  in  answering. 

"  What  does  her  conduct  mean?  "  he  repeated-  "  It 
may  mean  any  one  of  a  thousand  things  —  or  it  may 
mean  precisely  nothing  at  all.  You  must  ask  her  to 
find  out." 

"  It  means  something,"  persisted  Jarvis.  "  I  'd 
begun"  —  and  there  was  this  time  no  doubt  in  his 
tone,  —  "  I  'd  begun  to  make  the  mistake  of  judging 
this  girl  by  those  we  came  across  in  Boston  —  not  in 
a  bad  sense,  you  know,  but  concluding  that  I  could  n't 
have  put  up  with  the  frivolousness  as  a  regular  thing, 
supposing  she  'd  have  had  me.  Well,  though  I  'm 
still  bothered  by  that  criterion  some  times,  I  Ve  — 
since  I  Ve  seen  her  again,  and  hardly  think  I  can  ever 
get  her,  I  just  don't  care  about  anything.  I  only 
know  I  love  her  whatever  she  may  be." 

"  They  say  that 's  the  best  symptom.  I  don't  know. 
I  'm  honestly  no  judge  in  these  matters." 

It  had  cost  Jarvis  something  more  than  an  ordinary 
effort  to  get  himself  thus  far  in  his  confession  to  the 


344  JARVIS  OF  HARVARD. 

Major,  but  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  was  realf/ 
sensible  of  his  weakness  in  such  affairs  and  felt 
that  he  must  have  some  one  to  talk  to  and  to  help 
him,  as  on  that  other  evening  when  he  had  turned  to 
Hardy.  That  his  companion  should  appear  as  re- 
ticent as  the  principal,  was,  at  this  stage,  provoking, 
and  he  saw  that  he  must  be  perfectly  frank  if  he  would 
expect  in  return  the  frankness  which  he  required. 
The  old  sense  that  he  must  confide  in  somebody  — 
in  anybody,  almost  —  had  commanded  him  to  seek 
the  Major,  who  had  of  late  been  his  closest  intimate 
among  his  former  friends.  He  could  not  now  afford 
to  let  slip  the  chance  of  partial  comfort,  the  aid  to 
resolution  thus  held  out  to  him.  With  a  final  effort, 
he  therefore  plunged  headlong  into  a  description  full 
nearly  to  tediousness. 

"  You  see,"  he  at  last  concluded,  "  I  do  hesitate 
to  tell  her  that  I  love  her,  because  —  it  seems  queer 
for  me*  to  talk  in  this  way,  but  it 's  the  only  way  I 
can  talk  —  because  I  think  I  ought  to  tell  her  just 
what  I  am  and  all  about  myself  if  I  'm  going  to 
marry  her*  There 's  no  excuse  for  the  double  moral 
standard." 

"  You  want  me  to  speak  plainly,  don't  you,  Dick?  " 

"  Of  course." 

"And  to  call  things  by  their  right  names?  Very 
well."  And  the  Major  ran  his  thin  nervous  fingers 
through  his  red  hair.  "  Very  well,  I  will.  In  the  first 


THE   NEW   DISPENSATION.  345 

place,  then,  to  generalise  a  little.  Taken  alone  and  as 
individuals,  there  is,  of  course,  no  excuse  for  the 
double  moral  standard  between  husband  and  wife. 
But  you  can't  in  the  wife's  case  look  at  the  individual 
alone.  You  must  judge  the  crime  by  the  scope  of  the 
evil  it  effects.  Now,  I  don't  mean  to  say  there  is  any 
danger  of  accident  in  the  matter  at  hand  —  God  for- 
bid that  I  should  even  suggest  it  —  but  I'm  just 
giving  you  one  of  the  answers  to  your  little  theory  of 
the  single  standard.  And  then  it  has  this  bearing  on 
the  present  question  :  Your  cousin  's  nothing  —  for- 
give me  —  if  not  strong-headed.  So  far  as  I  can 
make  out  it 's  her  chief  charm.  Well,  by  telling  her 
about  your  little  peccadillos,  you  're  just  giving  her 
an  excuse  for  future  ones  of  her  own.  Harmless 
ones  of  course  and  not  bad,  but  merely  annoying." 

"  Stop  !  "  cried  Dick  in  agony.  "  You  don't  under- 
stand it  at  all.  How  can  you  talk  so?  It's  mon- 
strous, horrible !  " 

"  I  said  not  bad  but  merely  annoying." 

"  Yes,  yes,  I  know.  But  hang  it,  you  've  missed 
the  whole  point !  How  can  you  talk  so,  whatever  you 
may  mean,  in  connection  with  a  good  woman  ?  Don't 
you  know  what  one  is?  I  can't  have  you  go  on  this 
way,  if  it  costs  me  your  friendship.  I  really  can't. 
The  girl 's  an  angel." 

The  Major  smiled  and  carefully  brushed  some  ashes 
from  his  coat. 


346  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

"  My  dear  chap/'  he  calmly  continued,  "  if  I  were 
a  woman  and  a  man  called  me  an  angel,  I  would 
never  marry  him.  The  other  thing  one  could  forgive, 
but  an  angel  —  !  Now,  you  Ve  started  me  and  must 
just  sit  still  and  let  me  finish.  You  can  blacken  my 
eye  or  commit  any  vulgarity  you  please  —  afterwards. 
Only,  I  must  talk  first. 

"  If  you  tell  a  woman  all  your  sins,  she  may  —  if 
she  cares  for  you  she  undoubtedly  will  —  forgive  you 
now  and  the  confession  might  even  lend  you  a  sort  of 
melancholy  glory.  But  glory  and  forgiveness  are 
transient  things  and  marriages,  unfortunately,  stable. 
Sooner  or  later  there  'd  come  a  day  when  the  pardon 
would  change  into  condemnation  and  the  glory  be- 
come a  reproach.  She  could  n't  always  feel  edified 
at  having  saved  you.  She  must  some  times  feel  regret 
for  the  necessity  of  such  an  act  of  salvation.  And  at 
that  time  the  sins  of  your  youth  would  become  the 
excuse  for  those  of  her  maturity  —  small  ones  and 
mere  annoyances  in  this  case  as  I  observed  before. 
I  don't  say  hers  would  be  real  sins,  you  see,  they  'd 
probably  be  mere  thorns  among  the  roses,  but, 
between  real  sins  and  annoyances,  the  former,  for 
pure  peace  of  mind,  are,  in  another,  infinitely  to  be 
preferred.  You  don't  want  to  be  continually  reminded 
of  former  shortcomings.  You  don't  at  all  want  to  be 
reminded  of  them.  You  want  to  forget  them  and,  if 
ever  you  tell  a  woman,  that 's  impossible.  Even  if 


THE   NEW   DISPENSATION.  347 

she  never  opens  her  lips  about  them,  you  '11  find  it 
impossible." 

"  Now,  are  you  done  ?  " 

"  Very  nearly." 

"  But  you  Ve  missed  the  point,  I  tell  you !  " 

"  I  don't  want  to  do  anything  but  keep  you  from  a 
foolish  veracity.  It  is  n't  even  that.  These  things 
are  understood  by  every  woman  of  the  world." 

"  But,  I  'm  glad  to  say,  she  is  n't  a  woman  of  the 
world  —  not  of  your  world,  at  least." 

"  No  doubt,  but  I  don't  think  she  'd  thank  you  for 
saying  so.  It 's  curious  how  the  best  of  women 
always  like  it  to  be  thought  — ' 

"  Oh,  rot !  As  a  mere  matter  of  policy,  I  think  I 
ought  to  let  my  cousin  know  everything.  I  don't 
want  anybody  to  come  back  at  me  in  four  or  five 
years  with  some  disgraceful  tale,  some  miserable, 
vulgar  scandal." 

"  The  best  way  to  avoid  that  is  passed.  It  was  at 
hand  only  a  year  ago  last  summer.  —  Stuff!  Who 
could  do  it,  or  would  do  it  if  they  could  ?  You  Ve 
given  me  to  understand  that  you  Ve  had  a  little  affair 
of  the  heart  with  some  presumably  respectable  girl 
here  in  Philadelphia  —  well,  she 's  the  only  one 
you  Ve  ever  written  letters  to,  is  n't  she  ?  " 

Jarvis  nodded. 

"  Very  well,  then,  the  others  would  n't  have  any- 
thing to  show  for  it  if  they  would  come,  if  they  even 


348  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

knew  who  you  were  or  got  trace  of  you  —  which  is 
most  unlikely  —  would  they?  " 

"  No,  they  would  n't." 

"  Exactly.  Well,  this  one  girl  would  n't  try  to 
expose  you  if  she  's  sane,  as  I  suppose  she  is.  Why 
should  she  expose  you  ?  She  'd  have  everything  to 
lose  and  nothing  to  gain." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  think  she  'd  do  anything  silly.  She 's 
terribly  level-headed.  Besides,  there  's  nothing  com- 
promising in  what  I  wrote  her,  if  I  recollect 
rightly." 

The  Major  laughed. 

"  You  'd  recollect  all  right  if  there  was  !  —  But  for 
heaven's  sake,  then,  what  are  you  hesitating  about?" 
he  asked.  "  You  Ve  got  the  deadest  past  of  any  man 
I  know.  What  do  you  want,  anyhow?  There  's  not 
one  witness  against  you." 

"  Yes,  there  is  one  you  have  n't  counted  on." 

"Your  conscience?" 

"  Exactly.  I  can't  altogether,  I  'm  glad  to  say,  get 
away  from  that." 

"  I  thought  that  would  be  at  the  bottom  of  this. 
You  men  in  love  are  all  alike  and  all  commonplace.  — 
You  're  a  fool.  Do  you  suppose  there  's  one  man  in 
the  world  who  does  not  conceal  some  little  thing  at 
least  —  from  his  wife  ?  Well,  no  matter  how  small 
that  something  originally  was,  it  will  assume  tremen- 
dous proportions  just  because  it  is  concealed.  Yet, 


THE   NEW   DISPENSATION.  349 

do  you  think  that  prevents  the  man  from  being  a 
good  citizen,  a  good  husband,  or  a  good  father? 
Quite  the  contrary.  It  makes  him  a  better  one, 
because  he  must  be  continually  sacrificing  to  propiti- 
ate that  skeleton  in  his  closet.  Every  time  his  con- 
science pricks  him  he  regards  it  as  a  fresh  sin  and  he 
has  to  be  even  more  patriotic,  more  constant,  more 
tender,  to  overbalance  it.  And  that  state 's  much 
better  than  the  alternative  I  told  you  of  a  few  minutes 
ago." 

Jarvis'  whole  nature  revolted  against  the  man's 
tone,  but  he  was  quiet  enough  in  his  answer,  because 
he  now  readily  discerned  his  friend's  sincerity. 

"  I  can't  have  it,  Major,"  he  said,  "  I  really  can't. 
Don't  talk  this  way.  You  can  go  to  the  devil,  if  you 
like,  but  I  don't  want  to." 

"  Why,  Dick,  I  Ve  nothing  to  say  against  your 
cousin  and,  if  I  were  addicted  to  such  things,  I  'd 
probably  love  you  as  a  very  dear  friend.  I  think 
Miss  Bartol  's  a  splendid  example  of  her  class  — 
strong-headed,  as  I  said,  and  so  full  of  life  as  to  lean 
toward  innocent  indiscretion,  nothing  more.  You  Ve 
got  so  blamed  morbid  lately  that  you  exaggerate  every- 
thing—  in  the  wrong  way." 

"  No  I  don't  and  I  won't.  And  she  is  n't  indiscreet. 
I  don't  like  indiscretion  —  in  a  girl." 

"  Because  you  yourself  want  to  monopolise  that 
quality  of  the  firm.  Exactly.  But  —  do  you  know? 


350  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

—  I  think  it's  that  in  her  more  than  anything  else 
that  has  caught  your  heart." 

"  Well,  perhaps.     Yes,  I  dare  say  you  're  right." 

"  And  I  think  she  'd  suit  you  very  well.  Once  I 
told  you  that  one  married  a  companion,  not  a  woman. 
That 's  true,  but  I  did  n't  mean  that  the  companion 
must  be  like  one.  In  fact,  the  reverse  is  often  better. 
That 's  a  commonplace,  so  I  hurry  away  from  it.  As 
to  your  early  marriage,  I  don't  see  why  it  should  n't  be 
a  go,  provided  you  first  finish  up  your  four  years  at 
Cambridge.  You  Ve  got  plenty  of  money  and  after 
a  short  engagement — the  public  one,  I  mean  —  you 
could  settle  down  very  comfortably.  As  for  your 
talents,  you  need  n't  be  afraid  of  burying  them  — 
that 's  been  done  long  ago.  Seriously,  though,  you 
could  do  good  work  yet.  The  important  thing  is  to 
fix  this  up  and  then  to  go  back  to  College  and  keep 
your  head." 

"  Well,  I  'm  glad  you  agree  with  me  in  that,  any- 
way, and  I  think,  of  course,  that  I  Ve  got  the  right 
girl.  The  truth  is,  I  'd  love  her  anyhow." 

"  I  'in  glad  to  hear  you  adopting  that  unreasonable 
sentimental  tone.  It  shows  that  your  affection  is  real, 
anyway.  I  'm  sure  you  're  right.  In  spite  of  your 
philanderings,  you  Ve  returned  to  this  ideal  and  that 
goes  far  toward  proving  that  ideal  true  and  your 
worship  of  it  sufficiently  sincere.  It 's  different  with 
me.  I  never  stop  long  in  one  place,  never  retrace 


THE   NEW   DISPENSATION.  351 

my  steps  and  rarely  look  behind  me.  Anything  that 
catches  my  eye  will  catch  my  fancy  and  hold  it  until 
my  eye  is  caught  by  something  else.  The  daring 
tilt  of  a  hat,  the  challenge  of  a  flower  in  careless  hair, 
the  way  a  skirt  is  held  or  the  colour  of  a  glove  — 
anything  suffices  to  do  the  business  for  me  and 
nothing  can  do  it  for  long." 

"  Major,"  said  Jarvis,  softening  at  last.  "I  —  I 
wish  it  was  n't  so.  There  's  no  peace  to  that.  It 's 
'  a  burning  forehead  and  a  parching  tongue  '  as  long 
as  you  live.  Don't  you  mean  to  hit  it  off  some  day? 
It  'd  be  the  best  thing  for  you.  I  really  think  it 
would." 

"  Probably.  —  But  it's  no  use  to  suppose,  is  it? 
This  is  a  chaotic  world,  and  it  amuses  me  to  stand  off 
and  watch  it  spin.  You  're  in  the  midst  of  it  and  I  'm 
outside.  We  can't  really  touch  each  other  any  more. 
We  can  only  call  out  as  you  whirl  by.  I  can  no 
more  be  a  part  of  the  world  than  we  rich  men  can 
enter  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  We  're  both  happy, 
but  on  the  whole  I  guess  you  're  the  happier  of  the 
two.  Meanwhile,  don't  worry.  You  want  my  help. 
Well,  such  as  it  is,  you  shall  have  it.  You  Ve  got  the 
right  stuff  in  you,  anyhow,  and  even  Fate  can't  make 
a  sow's  ear  out  of  a  silk  purse.  But  you  must  take 
my  advice." 

"What's  that,  besides  what  you  Ve  given  me?" 

"  Win  this  girl  and  proceed  to  deserve  her.     Good 


352  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

heavens,  I  Ve  toned  down  and  I  'm  sure  you  could, 
then.  Go  back  to  College  for  the  rest  of  your  time 
and  behave  yourself.  You  '11  get  in  everywhere  if 
you  do  and  if  you  don't,  why  you  '11  still  get  the  main 
thing  that  Harvard  has  to  give.  The  College  lets  you 
make  your  choice  and  always  allows  you  to  change 
your  mind.  Good  Lord,  I  'm  no  preacher,  but  I 
mean  this  !  You  Ve  only  got  to  be  decent  and  do  a 
fair  share  of  work  and  that  thing  about  the  old  place 
that  isn't  to  be  had  anywhere  else  in  the  world  is 
yours  and  success  and  happiness  through  life  along 
with  it." 

"  And  you  think  this  affair  would  help  instead  of 
hinder?  For  my  own  part,  of  course,  I  am  sure  it 
would." 

"  And  so  am  I.  Naturally,  you  '11  do  as  you  please, 
anyhow,  —  I  would  n't  give  a  damn  for  the  chap  that 
did  n't  —  but  this  is  n't  as  if  you  had  a  touch  of  that 
recent  plague  among  us  —  the  marriage  of  chorus- 
girls.  And  you  can  both  wait.  Meanwhile,  I  don't 
mean  you  '11  have  to  go  in  for  the  Prospect  Union  and 
teach  all  you  don't  know  to  labourers  who  don't  need 
it.  But  I  do  mean  that  you  're  one  of  the  men  as 
sure — though  for  no  wordable  reason  —  of  making 
the  Dickey,  if  you  only  behave,  as  we  are  of  playing 
Penn  again  next  year,  recent  difficulties  to  the  con- 
trary notwithstanding.  There  's  the  '  Advocate  '  din- 
ner at  Ramevail's  just  waiting  for  you,  not  to  mention 


THE   NEW    DISPENSATION.  353 

the  Pudding  and  the  place  of  Class  Day  poet, — and 
good  work  of  that  sort  after  you  're  out  of  College, 
good  just  because,  as  I  told  you,  you  won't  have  to  do 
it  if  you  don't  want  to." 

" That's  a  little  too  flattering,"  Jarvis  protested, 
smiling  none  the  less,  "  but  I  know  what  you  mean, 
and  I  'd  made  up  my  mind  anyway  to  stick  it  out. 
There  's  something  about  the  old  place,  —  we  're 
always  saying  that  are  n't  we  ?  —  but  there  is  some- 
thing about  it  that  nobody  quite  understands  who 
is  n't  in  some  way  one  of  us ;  yet  It 's  something  more 
than  what  people  call  '  college  life  '  or  education,  or," 
he  obscurely  concluded,  "  or  anything  of  that  kind. 
It's  just  Harvard,  just  the  place  its  very  self,  I  guess, 
the  true  inwardness  of  it,  that 's  even  more  than  beau- 
tiful and  that  makes  it  worth  while  if  you  starve 
through  the  whole  four  years  of  it,  I  suppose,  or  die, 
—  or  never  know  a  soul." 

"  Yes,  you  're  right,"  said  the  Major,  somewhat 
shortly.  "  Only,  you  .know,  we  don't  mostly  talk  about 
it,  even  among  ourselves.  But  it  is  true.  There  's 
Memorial,  for  instance.  It  seems  easy  enough  to  say 
what  it  stands  for,  yet  ever  since  it  was  put  up  the 
smartest  men  in  the  country  have  been  trying  to  and 
have  failed,  —  mostly  with  miserable  bathos." 

"  Perhaps,"  suggested  Jarvis,  "  the  commonplace 
buildings  and  class  rooms  stand  for  even  more,  but 
\ve  fellows  who  know  it  best  find  it,  I  think  too  — 

23 


354  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

somehow  too  awful  and  fine  and  sacred,  almost,  to 
say." 

"  And  because  we  sensibly  keep  our  mouth  respect- 
ably shut,"  replied  the  Major,  "  and  because  we  don't 
vote  on  the  handsomest  man  in  the  class  and  can't 
point  to  So-and-So  as  the  most  popular,  silly  persons 
talk  of  '  Harvard  indifference.'  No,  we  will  leave 
Philistines  to  mouth  about  what  they  call  '  Old 
Harvard.'  They  are  disgusting.  But,  Dick,  you 
must  n't  lose  your  chance  there.  You  '11  do  as  you  've 
a  mind  to  about  this  affair,  of  course.  Only  in  the 
way  you  go  about  it,  for  heaven's  sake  take  the 
advice  I  offered  first !  " 

The  Major's  conclusions  in  that  matter  may  not 
have  been  precisely  exact,  but  he  believed  in  them, 
and  the  result  of  his  conversation,  so  far  as  he  was 
concerned,  was  another,  scarcely  so  satisfactory,  with 
Miss  Bartol.  He  would  never  have  admitted  to  any 
one,  —  and  to  himself  especially  —  that  he  had  un- 
dertaken to  plead  Jarvis'  cause  for  him ;  but  the  angel 
of  the  ledgers  could  scarcely  enter  the  act  under  any 
other  head. 

This  talk  took  place  the  very  next  afternoon  on 
Walnut  Street  when  Peggy,  according  to  her  new 
custom,  insisted  upon  walking  with  her  cousin's 
friend  and  leaving  her  mother  to  the  care  of  Dick. 
The  Major  was  clumsy  in  such  a  presence  and  found 
that  he  had  at  last  met  a  Roland  for  his  Oliver. 


THE   NEW    DISPENSATION.  355 

"  Jarvis  is  a  pretty  good  sort  of  a  fellow,  don't  you 
think?"  he  asked  with  the  customary  irrelevance  of 
the  embarrassed. 

"  If  you  doubt  your  own  judgment,  how  can  I 
say?"  replied  Peggy,  smiling  serenely.  "You  know 
him  well,  you  see,  and  I  scarcely  know  him  at  all." 

"  We  all  think  a  great  deal  of  him  at  Cambridge." 

"Indeed?" 

"  Yes,"  and  to  the  Major  for  a  moment  there 
seemed  nothing  else  to  be  said. 

But  he  was  not  to  be  bewildered  by  any  of  the 
blind  alleys  of  conversation  and  so,  after  a  pause,  he 
continued  :  "  We  all  so  want  to  see  him  marry." 

"  Goodness,  how  ridiculous !  Why,  he  's  a  mere 
boy !  " 

"  No  he  is  n't,  neither  in  age  nor  experience.  And 
he 's  so  awfully  in  love  with  some  one.  Anybody 
can  see  that." 

"Who'd  have  thought  it!  There's  the  Baroness 
De  Gooseback.  How  funny  she  does  look !  They 
say  she  's  been  dressing  like  a  girl  of  sixteen  for  the 
last  forty  years  !  " 

"  Yes.  Of  course  we  can't  guess  who  it  is,  Miss 
Bartol,  — who  the  girl  is  that  Dick 's  in  love  with,  I 
mean,  you  know.  But  she  seems  to  have  treated  him 
pretty  shabbily." 

"Pretty  shabbily?"  echoed  Miss  Bartol.  She 
was  all  attention  now. 


356  JARVIS  OF  HARVARD. 

The  Major  thought  he  had  struck  a  good  lead  at 
last,  and  resolved  to  follow  it  to  the  end. 

"  I  should  say  so,"  he  stoutly  asserted.  "  Here  's 
a  young  fellow  with  more  ability  than  any  one  in  the 
class ;  —  a  rich  chap  and  a  handsome  one ;  half  the 
girls  in  Boston  are  crazy  over  him,  and  he  simply 
shuts  himself  up  in  his  room  and  thinks  about  some 
little  chit  who  's  too  stupid  to  appreciate  him." 

There  came  an  added  colour  into  Peggy's  cheeks, 
but  she  said  nothing. 

"It's  too  bad,"  the  Major  ran  on,  "too  bad.  How- 
ever, we  think  he  '11  now  change  his  mind  soon." 

"Why's  that?" 

Was  it  possible  that  there  was  a  sharp  note  in  that 
flute-like  voice? 

"  Well,  we  Ve  simply  conspired  to  end  it.  We  're 
not  going  to  see  him  ruined  and  we  have  a  scheme 
to  put  a  stop  to  it.  I  think  it  '11  work.  There  are 
others  as  I  said  before." 

She  was  silent  for  a  while.     Then  she  said,  — 

"  Here  we  are  at  home." 

They  had  still  half  a  block  to  walk,  but  that  was 
enough  for  the  Major,  and  he  concluded  the  journey 
in  silence. 

When,  however,  they  had  reached  the  entrance  of 
the  Netherlands,  Peggy  turned  about  and  got  in  one 
last  laughing  aside  to  the  Major. 

"  I  have  always  understood,"  she  said  sweetly,  "  that 


THE   NEW   DISPENSATION.  357 

you  were,  first  of  all,  epigrammatical.  I  have  n't 
found  you  so  this  afternoon.  You  Ve  been  so  un- 
interesting that  I  'd  really  advise  you  to  stick  to  your 
specialty  and  let  your  friends  speak  always  for  them- 
selves." 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 
WHAT  A  DANCE   MAY   DO. 

JARVIS'  brief  vacation  was  nearly  at  an  end  when 
the  evening  for  the  Easter  Dance  arrived. 

This  is  a  comparatively  recent  affair,  a  subscription 
exotic  of  Philadelphia's  younger  set,  where  most  of 
the  girls  who  are  to  come  out  next  season  are  sup- 
posed to  gather  in  order  that  they  may  learn  from  the 
debutantes  present  what  it  is  all  like.  The  men  are 
of  every  age,  but  "  the  committee  in  charge  "  is,  as 
a  rule,  composed  of  beardless  youths  who  are  for  the 
first  time  feeling  their  importance  in  the  universe  and 
are  beginning  to  see  in  themselves  the  dictators  of 
future  Assembly  lists.  They  are,  indeed,  so  busy  and 
so  important  as  to  be  in  a  continual  bath  of  perspi- 
ration and  officiousness  the  whole  evening  long. 

The  scheme  is  only  a  half  dozen  years  old,  which 
is  new  for  Philadelphia,  and  is  consequently  regarded 
askance,  as  something  of  an  innovation,  by  a  few  of  the 
more  correct  families ;  but  its  years  agree  very  nearly 
with  those  of  its  perpetrators  and  these  cling  to  it 
with  all  the  affection  of  a  young  lioness  for  a  weakling 
cub.  Moreover,  it  is  old  enough  to  have  assumed 
a  definite  form  quite  as  immutable  as  the  laws  of 


WHAT  A   DANCE   MAY   DO.  359 

Persia,  and   that   is   going   far   toward   its   accepted 
establishment. 

Men  may  come  and  men  may  go,  but  a  Phila- 
delphia annual  dance  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day, 
and  forever.  As  Dick  and  the  Major  —  the  latter  it 
had  taken  a  whole  day  to  persuade  —  climbed  the 
three  toilsome  flights  of  stairs  in  Natatorium  Hall,  the 
former  could  have  described  with  perfect  exactness 
what  they  would  see  when  they  reached  the  top. 
The  frugality  of  Quaker  City  minds  is  never  better 
exemplified  than  in  their  arrangement  of  these  yearly 
affairs  social.  For  each  of  six  seasons  before,  the 
scene  had  been  the  same,  and  sixty  years  hence  there 
will  be,  probably  even  as  regards  the  patronesses,  no 
material  change.  To  his  comrade  the  picture  was 
doubtless  pretty  enough,  but  to  Jarvis  who  had  seen 
it  so  often,  it  had  lost  a  considerable  portion  of  its 
appeal. 

The  newspapers  of  the  city  keep  their  descriptions 
of  these  dances  set  up  for  use  and  marked,  year  after 
year,  "  Hold  for  orders."  "  An  exuberance  of  youth 
and  riot  of  beauty  characterised,"  they  say,  "  the 
assemblage  of  several  hundred  members  of  the 
younger  element  of  Philadelphia  society,  at  the  an- 
nual Easter  dance  last  evening.  The  Natatorium, 
on  South  Broad  Street,  where  the  dance  was  held,  was 
adorned  throughout  with  blossoms  and  blooms  of 
variegated  tints,  relieving  a  background  of  deep  green. 


360  JARVIS   OF    HARVARD. 

Huge  banks  of  lilies,  palms,  bay  trees,  white,  pink, 
and  red  azaleas  and  acacia  were  made  at  either  end. 
Southern  smilax  was  draped  and  festooned  over  the 
walls  and  a  tasteful  (sic)  arrangement  of  red  and  blue 
bunting  gave  an  exquisite  touch  of  colour  to  the 
floral  decorations.  The  polished  dancing  floor  re- 
flected in  its  surface  four  large  chandeliers,  which 
were  daintily  decked  with  sprays  of  orange  begonia. 
Around  the  sides  of  the  hall  were  columns,  sur- 
mounted by  palms,  while  at  one  corner  of  the  room 
the  orchestra  was  concealed  in  masses  of  plants." 

All  of  which  means  that  the  orchestra  was  hid  — 
supposititiously  —  behind  some  artificial  palms  in  one 
corner ;  that  along  the  walls  at  regular  intervals  stood 
a  few  sickly  imitation  bay  trees  with  benches  running 
beneath  them,  and  that  mirrors  at  the  far  end  of  the 
hall  helped  to  make  it  appear  as  large  as  it  should  have 
been.  Beneath  a  mantlepiece,  near  the  musicians, 
was  arrayed  that  equally  necessary  commodity,  a 
group  of  patronesses.  Over  their  heads  were  hung 
the  eternal  red  and  blue  bunting,  covered  shields  and 
flags,  colours  without  which  any  Philadelphia  dance 
is  altogether  incomplete. 

"  The  first  thing  for  a  stranger  to  ask  at  a  dance," 
said  the  Major  after  they  had  done  their  homage  to 
the  group  of  stout  dowagers,  "  The  first  thing  for  a 
stranger  to  ask  at  a  dance  is  who  to  avoid.  Consider 
yourself  asked,  Dick." 


WHAT   A   DANCE   MAY   DO.  361 

"  Avoid  the  strugglers,"  replied  Jarvis.  "  This 
matron  who  picks  our  pockets  by  painting  our  minia- 
tures from  photographs  and  that  one  from  whom 
*  youth  the  dream '  has  n't  taken  the  fondness  for  the 
company  of  our  sex,  both  have  something  to  recom- 
mend them.  They  could  n't  be  successfully  disreput- 
able unless  they  had  some  cleverness." 

"But  the  strugglers?" 

"  They  are  so  uncertain  of  their  position,  that,  for 
fear  of  losing  their  social  balance,  they  dare  n't  lean 
either  to  the  right  or  left.  They  must  always  be 
smiling  and  suave.  As  a  consequence,  they  are 
always  good  and  boring." 

He  had  hardly  finished  speaking  when  one  of  the 
extremes  of  this  latter  class  bore  down  upon  the  two 
Harvard  men.  She  introduced  her  daughter,  a  supple 
blonde  in  lavender  and  nile  green  who  had  come  out 
two  years  before,  and  Jarvis  was  forced  to  whirl  away 
with  her  before  he  had  a  chance  to  look  for  Peggy 
among  the  huddling  groups  of  rustling  dresses. 

The  Major  had  been  caught  up  by  one  of  the 
younger  girls  in  high  necked  white  gowns  and  had 
refused  to  dance.  That  is,  he  had  opened  the  con- 
versation by  saying  that  it  was  entirely  too  warm  for 
such  violent  exercise  and  had  then  proceeded  to  watch 
the  couples  that  shot  in  kaleidoscopic  flashes  before 
him. 

There  was  very  little  for  the  two  to  talk  about,  so 


362  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

he  had  small  difficulty  in  persuading  her  that  he 
wanted  to  have  certain  of  the  dancers  pointed  out  to 
him.  What  he  really  wanted  was  only  to  hear  her 
voice  as  a  foreigner  unacquainted  with  the  language 
might  hear  it.  He  did  not  want  to  be  bothered  with 
having  to  attend  to  her  words,  which  were,  by  com- 
parison, utterly  unimportant.  His  companion,  how- 
ever, took  him  literally  and  entered  upon  a  catalogue 
that,  had  he  really  listened,  would  have  scarcely  proved 
so  entertaining  as  the  mere  sound  of  the  deftly  in- 
flected phrases  appeared  to  indicate.  The  women 
were  mostly  poorly  dressed.  But  they  were  certainly 
the  prettiest  of  their  sex  in  all  the  world,  and  as  the 
Major's  companion  was  one  of  them,  and  as  she 
added  to  the  beauty  that  is  only  as  deep  as  the  cuticle 
that  quality  of  voice  which  is,  after  all,  the  best  thing 
in  the  best  woman,  he  found  the  situation  tolerably 
pleasant.  Indeed,  as  the  music  was,  of  its  kind,  very 
fair,  he  became  so  enamoured  of  his  scheme  that  by 
the  time  the  evening  was  over  he  had  had  half  the 
girls  in  the  place  pointing  out  the  other  half  to 
him,  silent,  or  at  best  only  monosyllabic,  at  their 
side. 

On  his  part,  Jarvis  was  delighted  to  find  himself 
enjoying  the  dancing  for  its  own  sake.  He  had  re- 
covered the  love  of  movement  in  perfect  rhythm  with 
a  delicately  timed  accompaniment.  He  was  happy 
in  the  simple  sense  of  having  turned  back  the  page 


WHAT   A   DANCE   MAY   DO.  363 

of  time,  of  having  snatched  his  heart  from  the  dev6ur- 
ing  maw  of  the  years. 

When  they  met  again,  however,  the  Major,  if  only  to 
sustain  his  reputation,  felt  bound  to  enter  some  form 
of  protest. 

"  See  here,  Dick,"  he  complained.  "  I  submitted 
to  come  to  a  dance,  but  I  did  n't  say  anything  about 
a  kindergarten." 

But  Jarvis'  attention  was  elsewhere.  Down  at  the 
other  end  of  the  room,  a  trim  little  figure  in  blue  was 
bowing  before  the  patronesses.  He  had  been  watch- 
ing for  it  since  his  own  entrance. 

"  There  she  is !  "  he  cried  and  made  off  toward  his 
approaching  cousin. 

Peggy  had  evaded  the  deepest  schemes  to  get  her 
to  the  dance  in  the  Jarvis  carriage.  The  best  laid 
plans  had  all  failed  and  Dick  had  feared  the  worst. 
But  now  she  carried  the  American  Beauties  he  had 
sent  her  and  was  accompanied  only  by  his  harmless 
uncle,  Harry  Freeze.  The  relief  was  a  little  too 
extreme. 

"  Is  n't  this  my  dance?"  he  asked  with  the  as- 
surance of  his  years. 

"  Don't  you  count  your  uncle  at  all?  "  she  answered. 
"  Age  first,  you  know." 

"  That 's  a  trifle  hard  on  me,"  said  Freeze,  who  was 
slight  and  florid  and  had  really  done  wonders  in  the 
way  of  making  a  small  brain  serve  for  a  large  head. 


364  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

"  Not  half  so  hard  as  it  is  on  me,"  Dick  objected. 

"  But  you  '11  have  the  anticipation  of  the  next 
dance  to  help  you  out,  while  the  realisation  is  all  I  '11 
come  in  for." 

"  I  ask  nothing  more  than  the  realisation,"  replied 
Jarvis,  glancing  at  Peggy. 

But  his  cousin's  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  whirling 
forms  about  her.  She  had  obviously  come  there  to 
dance  and  considered  that  the  paramount  object  of 
the  moment. 

Dick  made  the  best  of  it  and  watched  her  slip  into 
the  stream  of  dancers  so  easily  that  she  seemed  at  once 
to  become  an  irresponsible  part  of  it.  But  she  was 
by  no  means  a  lost  factor.  On  the  contrary,  he  could 
not  have  lost  sight  of  her  had  he  wished  to.  For  the 
first  few  times  she  passed  him,  he  watched  the  blue  dress 
float  by  in  the  hope  that  he  would  get  a  passing 
glance,  but  he  might  as  well  have  spared  himself  the 
pains.  She  was  looking  up  at  Freeze  and  talking 
faster  than  ordinary  waltz-time. 

Jarvis  did  not  like  it.  He  did  not  like  it  at  all. 
He  had  looked  forward  to  this  ball  with  a  good  deal 
of  pleasure,  because  here  he  would  dance  with  Peggy, 
but  he  had  failed  to  calculate  upon  her  dancing  with 
other  men  as  well.  The  discovery,  in  fact,  startled 
him.  It  appeared  somehow  to  make  her  commoner, 
to  lower  her,  and  to  make  her  in  a  measure  and  for 
the  moment  the  property  of  whatever  arm  happened 


WHAT  A  DANCE   MAY   DO.  365 

to  be  about  her  waist.  The  Methodists  were  not, 
then,  so  far  wrong  after  all.  The  sensation  was 
scarcely  a  pleasant  one  and  he  was,  therefore,  not  in 
the  gayest  of  humours  when  he  again  crossed  the  hall 
to  meet  his  cousin. 

"  Now  comes  the  realisation,  Dick,"  said  Freeze. 

"  I  envy  you  after  all,"  replied  Jarvis.  "  Yours  is 
the  sorrow's  crown  of  sorrow." 

His  hurt  was  severe,  but  it  could  not  long  be  proof 
against  the  balm  of  the  situation  that  now  presented 
itself.  In  a  few  moments  he  was  gliding  away  he 
knew  not  whither,  without  effort,  without  thought. 
The  happy  present  extended  itself  to  an  ecstatic  infin- 
ity that  swallowed  up  both  past  and  future.  The  low, 
slow  waltz  throbbed  in  his  ears  with  long  delicious 
minor  notes,  and  his  whole  body,  his  complete  being, 
was  resolved  into  a  unison  with  it.  His  very  muscle 
was  a  part  of  a  perfect  poem,  every  tissue  of  his  body 
responding  to  the  minutest  chord  of  the  flood  of 
melody,  while  resting  upon  him,  looking  up  at  him, 
with  her  breath  upon  his  face  and  her  whole  figure 
swaying  like  a  part  of  his  own,  was  the  one  woman 
who  comprised  all  life  for  him. 

Only  twice  did  his  eyes  wander  from  hers ;  once 
when,  for  no  sufficient  cause,  it  suddenly  occurred  to 
him  that  Mary  Braddock  might,  by  some  ill  and  unus- 
ual chance,  be  in  the  room,  and  again  when  the  Major 
—  for  once,  by  unimaginable  wiles,  inveigled  into  the 


366  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

waltz  —  bumped  heavily  against  his  shoulder.  He 
rapidly  assured  himself  that  his  fear  was  ungrounded. 
His  brush  with  his  collegiate  friend  permitted  of 
neither  explanation  nor  apology,  for  the  good  reason 
that  the  Major's  efforts  at  gracefulness  occupied  that 
gentleman's  whole  attention.  He  was  dancing  as  if 
it  hurt  him. 

The  waltz  proved  as  short  as  all  such  things  invari- 
ably do.  Its  immeasurable  present  came  to  a  sud- 
den end  and  entered  into  the  irrevocable  past.  The 
music  stopped  and  Dick  and  his  partner  brought  up 
under  the  bay  trees  just  as  Hardy  dashed  down 
upon  them  to  claim  the  next  dance. 

Jarvis  kept  his  seat.  He  did  not  care  to  dance 
with  anybody  but  Peggy,  and  he  felt  hurt  that  Peggy 
should  care  to  dance  with  anybody  but  him. 

Meanwhile,  in  another  corner  of  the  room,  his 
cousin  was  telling  Hardy  how  much  she  was  enjoying 
herself.  It  was  a  mere  conventionality,  but  he  an- 
swered it  with,— 

"  And  do  you  feel  toward  this  dance  just  as  you 
did,  you  remember,  toward  the  automobiling?  " 

"  Oh,"  she  laughed,  "  I  could  dance  even  longer." 

That  Hardy  was  as  happy  as  Jarvis  had  been  was 
evident  to  the  latter  from  the  manner  in  which  the 
envied  swain  had  taken  the  girl  away,  his  head 
thrown  back  and  his  eyes  turned  up  as  if  drawing  in- 
spiration from  on  high. 


WHAT   A   DANCE   MAY   DO.  367 

The  Major  sauntered  up  on  a  mission  of  consolation. 

"  So  the  '  beamish  boy '  got  her,  did  he?  "  he  asked. 
"  Well,  she  might  be  in  worse  company,  and  you  can't 
expect  to  have  her  all  the  time  just  yet." 

"  Ridiculous !  "  Jams  replied,  angry  as  we  all  are 
at  being  detected  in  our  secret  faults.  "  Of  course,  I 
don't  mind.  Don't  be  a  fool.  Why  should  I  mind, 
even  if  I  had  any  right  to?  " 

"  Because  you  're  human  and  in  love.  That's  why 
you  should  mind.  If  you  were  n't  offended,  I  'd  take 
it  as  the  worst  possible  sign." 

Jarvis  laughed  good  naturedly  again. 

"  Perhaps  you  're  right,"  he  assented.  "  Anyhow, 
the  next  one  's  mine." 

"  And  the  next,  if  you  can  get  it.  That 's  right. 
It 's  a  thing  that  can't  be  overdone ;  don't  be 
afraid." 

Jarvis  was  not.  WThen  he  was  again  drifting  upon 
that  swaying  stream  he  and  she  one  and  a  part  of  it, 
he  could  find  no  words  to  say  but  those  that  asked 
for  still  another  dance. 

"  Can't  you  spare  me  one  more  — just  one  more?" 
he  asked. 

"  After  supper,  perhaps." 

"  Oh !  Then  of  course  I  can  have  one,  or  two. 
But  mayn't  I  have  the  next  but  one  now?  The 
Major  wants  the  very  next." 

"  Does  he  indeed  ?     He   has  n't  taken  the  trouble 


368  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

to  ask  for  it.  Do  men  always  ask  favours  for  each 
other?" 

"I  don't  know  — I  don't  care.  Just  tell  me  if  I 
may  have  it.  May  n't  I,  please?  " 

His  words  were  asking  for  a  trifle ;  his  tone,  low  and 
trembling,  was  begging  all  that  she  had  to  give. 
Their  eyes  met  again  and  then  hers  slowly  fell. 

"  Perhaps,"  she  said  in  a  tone  as  tremulous  as  his. 
"  Come  to  me  when  it 's  time  and  I  '11  see." 

"  There  he  goes,"  the  Major  was  saying  to  Hardy, 
—  he  thought  it  just  as  well  to  warn  him;  "she  has 
feathers  on  her  head  and  nothing  in  it.  Just  the  girl 
for  him.  He  '11  find  himself  an  intellectual  giant  by 
comparison,  and  the  discovery  '11  keep  him  in  a  good 
humour  all  his  days." 

Jarvis  got  the  dance  he  asked  for  —  he  had  felt  sure 
he  would,  though  when  he  came  for  it  Peggy  vowed 
she  was  cutting  one  promised  to  another  man. 

"But  then,"  she  added,  "you  dance  much  better 
than  anyone  else  here,  so  it's  no  great  compliment." 

Dick  was  satisfied  to  take  it  without  asking  questions 
and,  on  her  part,  his  cousin  must  have  felt  something  of 
the  witchery  in  the  scene,  for  when  he  asked  her  to  sit 
out  the  succeeding  dance  she  seemed  willing  enough 
to  be  with  him  and  loath  only  to  miss  the  dancing. 

"  When  I  go  to  one  of  these  things,"  she  explained, 
"  I  like  to  dance  every  dance.  I  never  get  tired  till 
next  day  and  then  I  'm  asleep  and  don't  mind  it 


WHAT  A   DANCE   MAY   DO.  369 

And   then   at  a  dance   *  to-morrow '   sounds   farther 
away  than  ever." 

"  But  you  don't  really  object  to  sitting  out  this  one 
dance  in  the  other  room?" 

"  No-o."  —  She  had  a  way  of  saying  it  slowly, 
through  pursed  lips.  —  "  Not  just  this  one.  But  it 's 
honestly  the  last  one  you  may  have  —  before  supper." 

He  had  thought  it  was  too  early  for  the  "  other 
room  "  to  be  filled  and  when  they  pushed  back  the 
curtain  to  enter  it  he  found  that  his  conjecture  was 
correct.  The  place  was  empty.  There  were  one  or 
two  lamps  burning  dimly,  but  their  radiance  was 
scarcely  illuminative.  Here  and  there  were  scattered 
tete-a-tetes  and  a  few  odd  chairs  with  wide,  vain  arms 
petitioning  occupancy. 

Jarvis  was  ill  at  ease.  He  had  determined  nothing 
relative  to  the  Major's  advice.  He  had  fixed  upon 
one  thing  only.  The  rest  could  be  adjusted  as  the 
occasion  arose. 

Peggy  sank  upon  a  rude  sort  of  half  lounge  and 
rested  her  head  on  its  high  back.  Dick  took  up  a 
position  close  by  her,  looking  out  of  a  window  on  to 
Broad  Street.  But  he  did  not  let  the  thoroughfare 
engage  his  attention  for  any  length  of  time.  He  had 
far  too  much  to  say  and  might  at  any  moment  be 
interrupted. 

She  was  looking  up  at  him,  half  smiling  half  serious 
yet  wholly  saucy.  The  blue  light  from  an  electjV 

34 


370  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

lamp  in  the  street  played  over  her  face  as  if  with  a 
caress  and  lost  itself  in  the  folds  of  her  lighter  blue 
dress.  A  supple  arm,  that  the  rumpled  glove  seemed 
loath  to  hide,  was  stretched  out  along  the  dark  back 
of  the  seat;  her  hair,  a  little  disarranged,  had  let  loose 
one  frolicking  lock  that  trembled  on  her  forehead ; 
her  breast  still  heaved  with  the  glad  exertion  of  the 
dance.  From  without  the  notes  of  a  low,  minor 
waltz,  pathetically  sweet,  stole  softly  into  the  room 
and  seemed  to  play  in  mystic  waves  of  melody  about 
her.  Yet  happiness  shone  in  the  tell-tale  eyes 
ambushed  by  the  arch  little  nose,  and  in  the  pink, 
shell-like  ears,  the  tumbled  hair,  the  mocking  chin. 
She  was  so  full  of  life,  so  much  the  incarnation  of 
some  wild  primrose ! 

"  And  this  is  absolutely  the  last  dance  ? "  asked 
Jarvis,  almost  whispering  the  words,  lest  he  should 
break  the  charm  and  see  the  dryad  flee. 

"Absolutely  —  until  after  supper,"  she  laughed. 

"  Well,  you  Ve  been  very  kind.  I  'm  surprised  that 
you  should  have  given  me  any." 

"  Why?  —  Be  careful  or  you  '11  make  me  sorry  that 
I  did." 

"  Because,  then,  I  was  so  rude  the  last  time  you 
were  in  Boston." 

"  I  suppose  I  should  n't  have  let  on  that  I  even 
noticed  that,  but  I  did,"  she  said,  trying  to  laugh 
again,  yet  with  a  slight  catch  in  her  voice. 


WHAT   A   DANCE   MAY   DO.  371 

"You  'd  never  guess  why  I  did  n't  see  more  of  you." 

"  Don't  let 's  try  to  guess.  Suppose  we  forgive  — 
and  forget." 

She  was  busy  now  turning  up  the  collar  of  her 
ermine  cape  —  and  then  turning  it  down  again. 

Jarvis  moved  behind  her  and  leaned  over  on  the 
back  of  the  seat.  He  was  trembling  painfully. 

"No,"  he  said  "Let  us  talk  of  it.  I  want  to 
apologise." 

"  But  you  have." 

"  I  was  n't  always  rude." 

"  No  —  unless  it  was  the  other  night  when  —  when 
you  were  putting  on  my  coat,  you  know  —  and  per- 
haps —  but  no,  I  guess  you  were  n't  then." 

"  Perhaps  when?  " 

"  Never  mind." 

"  Oh,  please  tell  me,"  he  pleaded. 

"  Is  this  what  they  call  Harvard  indifference?  "  she 
asked  laughing. 

"  It 's  downright  anxiety,"  he  assured  her. 

"  Well,  then,  I  meant  that  night  we  were  driving 
and  were  lost  in  the  dark." 

"  We  're  all  of  us  lost  in  the  dark  most  of  the  time 
—  except  you,  may  be.  —  But  surely,  I  was  n't  rude 
then?  Why,  do  you  know,  Peggy,  at  that  time  I 
imagined  I  was  in  love  with  you  ?  " 

He  could  not  see  her  face  now,  but  the  collar  was 
turned  up  violently. 


3/2  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

"  You  were  very  foolish,"  she  replied,  in  a  changed 
voice. 

He  took  her  nervous  hands  in  his  and  held  them 
fast  above  her  head. 

"  Was  I,  Peggy?  Was  I,  Peggy,  dear?  I  won't  let 
you  go  till  you  say  that  I  was  n't." 

"Why  not?     Oh!  Don't  be  foolish  again,  Dick! 

—  There  !     The  music  's  stopped  and  the  next  dance 
belongs  to  —  " 

"To  me,  Peggy.     I  love  you.     You  must  know  it 

—  you  must  have  known  it  long  ago.     I  don't  amount 
to  much.     I  know  that —  "     It  was  at  the  tip  of  his 
tongue  to  say  more,  but  he  only  added  — "Yet  I  love 
you,  with  my  whole  heart  I  do.     Tell  me  that  you  do 
care  a  little  for  me." 

She  ceased  struggling.     Then,  — 

"  One  moment,"  she  laughed.  "  Did  what-d'  you- 
call  'em  —  the  Major?  —  tell  you  to  do  this?  " 

"  Why  no,"  he  gasped  in  amazement.  "  What  on 
earth—  ?" 

"  Then  —  yes,  I  do  —  Oh  !  Dick !     Not  here  !  " 

But  Dick  was  disobedient. 

"  Sweetheart !  "  he  cried,  "  And  I  never  guessed  it !  " 

By  a  sudden  movement  she  wrenched  herself  free 
and  darted  toward  the  doorway. 

"  It  did  take  you  rather  long  to  find  out,"  she  said 

And  the  dryad  had  disappeared. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 
GOKURAKF. 

THEY  planned  with  all  the  sanguine  certainty  of 
youth.  "  Ricardum  Jarvis,  alumnum  ad  gradum  Bac- 
calaurei  in  Artibus  admisimus,  atque  dedimus  et 
concessimus  omnia  insignia  et  jura  ad  hunc  honorem 
spectantia :  —  Dick  was  to  finish  out  his  course  at 
Harvard ;  he  was  to  arrange  for  going  into  business 
with  his  father,  for  spending  his  final  summer  abroad, 
and,  upon  his  return  after  graduation,  he  was  to 
inform  Mrs.  Bartol  and  his  own  parents  of  what  had 
come  about  at  that  Easter  dance.  Jarvis  chafed  at 
the  delay,  but  Peggy  put  it,  "  It  is  so  that  we  may 
have  a  chance  to  know  our  minds." 

"  I  know  mine  quite  too  well  for  my  own  comfort," 
he  answered  her,  "  but  if  you  still  doubt  yours  —  " 

She  stopped  him  in  the  one  effective  way,  and  had 
her  will ;  conceding,  however,  a  generous  two  or 
three  days  addition  to  his  vacation  before  his  return 
to  Cambridge. 

The  Major  was  to  go  north  at  once.  He  had 
graduated  cum  laude  from  his  study  of  Jarvis  and 
felt  that  he  had  nothing  more  to  do  with  an  affair  so 
foreign  to  his  traditions. 


3/4  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

"  It 's  all  very  pretty,  Dick,"  he  said ;  "  it 's  as  beauti- 
ful as  transubstantiation  and  the  immaculate  concep- 
tion; but  poetic  myths  have  nothing  for  me." 

Jarvis  went  with  him,  of  course,  to  Broad  Street 
Station  to  see  him  off,  too  happy  to  feel  much  pity 
for  those  who  could  not  share  his  happiness. 

"  I  Ve  only  one  more  piece  of  advice  to  give,"  said 
the  Major  as  he  shook  Dick's  hand :  "  Keep  the 
thing  a  secret  from  everybody  —  we  must  hide  our 
shame  —  except  from  Hardy.  Tell  him  at  once." 

As  the  train  pulled  away  Dick  noticed  a  man  lean- 
ing far  out  of  a  window  and  looking  toward  the  gate. 
He  was  big  and  strong,  and  was  crying.  He  waved 
his  handkerchief  and  threw  kisses  again  and  again 
with  great,  labour-stained  hands  to  some  one  behind 
Jarvis  who  had  passed  the  barrier  and  was  standing 
well  within  the  car  shed.  Dick  turned.  Some 
twenty  paces  back  stood  a  thin,  delicate-looking 
woman,  coarsely  and  rather  shabbily  dressed,  and  by 
no  means  pretty.  She  had  dropped  the  hand  of  a 
sobbing  girl  of  five  or  six,  held  a  baby  with  arms  out- 
stretched toward  the  retreating  train,  whilst  her  whole 
body  shook  with  unrestrained  emotion,  and  the  tears 
ran  unheeded  down  her  face. 

The  sight  dampened  his  spirits  and,  momentarily, 
saddened  him.  He  was  angry  that  any  one  should 
know  sorrow  when  he  was  so  happy.  He  had 
imagined  the  whole  world  glad  as  he.  Buoyantly  he 


GOKURAKF.  375 

repelled  the  omen.  He  slipped  a  bill  into  the  wo- 
man's hand  and  hurried  away,  giving  no  chance  for 
refusal.  Yet  the  Major's  parting  words  seemed  to 
conspire  with  this  tearful  family  separation  to  presage 
ill.  He  did  not  understand  them,  and  liked  them 
none  the  better  for  that. 

On  the  steps  he  met  Hardy. 

"  Hullo  !  "  he  cried,  "  are  n't  you  going  back  to- 
day?" 

"Are  n't  you?" 

"  No,  the  fact  is,  I  Ve  something  important  which 
will  detain  me  for  a  day  or  two." 

"  So  have  I.  I  meant  to  see  you  fellows  off — I 
understood  you  were  to  leave  by  this  train  —  and  as 
usual  I  am  too  late." 

"  Not  too  late  to  see  me.  Come  over  and  we  will 
drink  bon  voyage  to  the  Major." 

They  crossed  the  street  and  sat  down  in  the  rear 
room  of  a  saloon. 

"  So  you  Ve  something  to  keep  you  here?"  asked 
Jarvis,  filled  with  his  own  momentous  secret. 

"  Yes  —  a  little  thing  —  a  —  a  —  " 

"Come,  Hardy!  You  are  taken  at  last?  I  know 
the  symptoms." 

"  Well,  —  yes,  —  I  suppose  you  may  say  so,"  ad- 
mitted Hardy,  blushing  intensely. 

"  Bert  Hardy  !  A  stricken  deer  !  Break  it  gently. 
Of  the  knowable  universe,  the  last  man  I  This  is  too 


3/6  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

much.  My  poor  boy,  what  a  dance  she'll  lead 
you  ! " 

"  I  dare  say  she  won't  get  the  chance." 

"Uh?" 

"  I  mean  I  'm  not  worthy  of  her  and  sha'  n't  ever 
propose  to  a  girl  till  I  am.  Besides,"  he  added  smil- 
ing, "  you  know  Stannard's  opinions  on  the  duties  of 
Sophomores.  I  have  three  or  four  years  before  me 
yet." 

"  Take  my  advice  and  don't  wait.  Women  don't 
keep  well.  As  for  being  worthy,  that 's  a  worn-out 
fad.  You  're  worthy  enough  if  you  love  them." 

"  That 's  a  matter  of  opinion.  At  any  rate,  I  've 
been  foolish  to  tell  you.  I  just  had  to  tell  somebody, 
though.  I  suppose  you  '11  guy  me  now.  It 's  your 
turn." 

"Stuff!  Why,  you  have  n't  told  me  anything  and 
I  'm  in  the  same  box.  Hardy  —  I  did  n't  mean  to  tell 
you,  only  the  Major  says  I  'd  better.  I  suppose  he 
thinks  I  ought  to  tell  the  crowd,  so  you  can  all  help 
keep  me  straight,  —  as  if  there  'd  be  any  need  of 
trying,  —  but  I  'm  engaged." 

"  To  be  married  ?  "  gasped  the  other  man. 

"  Certainly,  did  you  think  I  was  going  on  the 
boards?  Yes,  we've  fixed  it  all  up.  I'm  going  to 
keep  it  a  dead  secret  until  I  come  back  from  Europe 
after  my  finish  at  Cambridge.  Then  we  're  to  an- 
nounce it,  you  know,  and  the  governor 's  going  to  let 


GOKURAKF.  377 

me  into  a  corner  of  his  business,  anyhow,  and  we  '11 
settle  down  in  this  place." 

The  confidant  of  these  assurances  was  silent  for 
a  while,  carefully  breaking  a  pretzel  into  small  bits, 
regardless  of  the  crumbs  that  showered  on  his  lap. 
Then  he  said  — 

"  What  fs  —  who  's  the  girl  ?  " 

"  Good  Lord  !  "  cried  Dick.  "  There 's  only  one 
possible !  " 

That  was  exactly  what  Hardy  had  thought.  Never- 
theless, he  managed  to  reply,  — 

"Yes?     And  who's  that?" 

"  Peggy  Bartol,  my  cousin,  of  course.  You  idiot ! 
Who  would  you  imagine?  Now  tell  me  about  your 
girl." 

Hardy  smiled,  and  gathering  together  the  bits  of 
pretzel,  let  them  fall  slowly  through  his  ringers  to  the 
floor. 

"  No,  not  now,"  he  said.  "  It 's  four-thirty  and  I 
should  have  been  at  the  club  by  four.  Some  other 
time,  perhaps.  Good-bye." 

And  he  stood  up,  brushing  his  clothes. 

"  Well,  here,  are  n't  you  going  to  congratulate  me  ?  " 
asked  Dick. 

"  Oh,  I  beg  pardon  !  I  thought  I  had.  You  know 
I  do  congratulate  you  with  all  my  heart.  I  'm  sure 
she's  the  nicest  girl  in  all  the  world  —  except  mine, 
of  course." 


3/8  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

He  was  smiling  again  as  he  went  toward  the  door. 

"  You  're  civil,  I  must  say !  "  Dick  called  after  him. 
"Well,  I  shall  expect  to  hear  all  about  your  case 
when  we  meet  again." 

Poor  Hardy !  He  did  not  care  to  have  that  meet- 
ing take  place  very  soon.  He  had  worshipped  Peggy 
in  silent  awe  and  from  a  distance  far  below  her,  as  the 
devotees  of  the  Fire  God  bow  low  in  the  shadowy 
valley  before  the  sun  that  rises  over  far-off  white 
mountain  peaks.  It  could  scarcely  have  been  called 
love,  after  all.  In  those  early  days  of  his  affection  he 
would  no  more  have  touched  her  with  earthy  hand 
than  would  the  kneeling  Catholic  pour  in  praise  of 
Dionysus  the  last  drops  from  the  eucharistic  chalice. 
And  now  the  sanctuary  where  he  had  not  dared  to 
pry  was  to  be  violated ;  the  veil  of  the  temple  rent 
from  top  to  bottom,  and  the  holy  of  holies  ravished 
by  his  friend.  He  would  go  around  and  say  good- 
bye to  her  that  evening  and  then  take  a  night  train 
back  to  Cambridge  where  he  belonged. 

Left  behind,  the  unconscious  Jarvis  finished  his 
beer  at  his  leisure,  supremely  content.  Heaven  had 
indeed  been  opened  to  him  at  last.  He  did  not  de- 
serve it  —  he  well  knew  that  he  did  not  —  but  what 
man  could  have  refused  it  then?  What  man  having, 
however  unsuccessfully,  laboured  to  gain  it,  could 
throw  it  aside  once  it  had  become  unexpectedly  his? 

Certainly  that  man  was  not  Richard  Jarvis.     It  was 


GOKURAKF.  379 

his  and  he  would  be  content  in  that  fact  to  enjoy  it, 
He  had  forgotten  the  soiled  angel  who  was  the  direc- 
tress of  his  happiness;  he  had  forgotten  even  Mary 
Braddock.  His  conscience  never  troubled  him  for  a 
moment  now.  When  he  last  sought  advice  he  had  in 
a  manner  shifted  conscience  off  on  to  the  shoulders 
of  another  and,  moreover,  he  now  really  believed  that 
the  Major  was  right.  Few  of  us  could  be  happy  if  we 
knew  the  pain  that  our  joy  is  giving  others,  but  Fate, 
not  wholly  unkind,  has  hidden  from  most  of  us  the 
law  that  for  every  thrill  of  joy  there  must  be,  either  in 
ourselves  or  in  others,  a  corresponding  twinge  of  an- 
guish, and  Dick  could  not  see  into  Hardy's  heart. 

He  sat  there  for  some  time  alone,  sipping  from  his 
glass  and  puffing  slowly  at  a  cigar.  The  place  was 
hot  and  close;  the  ceiling  was  low  and  the  floor 
covered  with  beer-stains.  But  these  things  were  not 
for  Dick.  For  him  the  damp  walls  receded  indefi- 
nitely, the  blackened  ceiling  disappeared;  the  real 
picture  vanished  and  the  dream-picture  took  its  place. 

Who  dares  to  say  what  that  dream-picture  was? 
Banal  perhaps,  but  sacred  certainly.  Painted  it  was 
by  love  and  time,  by  sorrow  and  the  years.  The  glass 
glowed  in  his  hand,  delicate  to  fragility;  the  beer 
became  the  rarest  Falernian;  the  cigar  was  a  cool 
Manila. 

Ah,  sweet,  impossible,  impalpable  dreams  —  cloud- 
cities  that  people  our  narrow  horizon,  catching  stray 


380  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

gleams  as  from  some  higher  plane  !  Are  you  indeed 
but  hopeful  figments  of  the  mind,  mere  chimeras  of 
the  air-devils  who  would  lead  us  through  expectancy 
to  disaster  and  despair?  Or  are  you,  as  with  Jarvis, 
like  the  mirage  that  tempts  the  thirsty  desert  traveller, 
the  ideal  reflections  of  some  real  haven  that  some 
day,  blindly,  we  know  not  how  nor  when,  but  some 
day,  we  may  still  attain? 

Dick  awoke  with  a  start.  The  evening  had  set  in 
and  the  waiter  had  opened  a  window  behind  him  pre- 
paratory to  sweeping  out  the  place.  Jarvis  looked  at 
the  clock  through  the  gathering  gloom.  It  was  after 
six  and  he  must  still  dress  and  dine  and  be  with 
Peggy  by  half-past  eight. 

When  he  passed  the  outer  door  of  the  saloon  a 
drop  of  rain  struck  him  in  the  face.  Another  and 
another  followed  and  the  early  twilight  was  explained. 
He  sought  refuge  in  a  nearby  hotel,  resolved  to  have 
his  dinner  there  and  thus  put  in  the  time  until  the 
rain  had  ceased.  He  did  not  want  to  go  home  at  any 
rate  ;  in  his  present  frame  of  mind  he  much  preferred 
dining  alone. 

In  the  crowded  room  there  was  an  orchestra  that 
was  playing  as  he  came  in.  It  annoyed  him  and  dis- 
turbed the  current  of  his  thoughts  at  first,  but  it  soon 
stopped  and  he  forgot  it  in  the  continuation  of  his 
day-dream.  He  forgot  his  consomme  too,  and  the 
waiter  took  it  away  untouched.  He  nibbled  at  his 


GOKURAKF.  381 

saddle  of  mutton ;  toyed  with  a  chartreuse  punch,  and 
was  fast  becoming  oblivious  to  everything  over  his 
coffee  when  the  music  began  again.  He  did  not 
notice  it  at  once.  Then  gradually  the  familiar  air  stole 
in  upon  his  consciousness  and  he  dropped  his  spoon 
with  a  sharp  clatter.  It  was  the  "  Traume." 

The  tremendous  tidal  wave  of  memory  swept  down 
upon  him  and  engulfed  him.  It  was  vain  to  struggle, 
vain  to  battle  against  it.  Blind  chaos  had  come 
again  in  that  remembered  form  and  while  the  notes 
continued,  pleading,  sobbing,  imploring,  resumed  its 
old  empire.  And  in  the  throbbing  of  the  violins 
there  came  to  him  these  words,  — 

"  Whenever  she  crosses  your  path,  this  woman, 
sooner  or  later,  will  cast  you  down  deeper  than  you 
ever  were  before.  '  Your  own  iniquities  shall  take 
you,  and  you  shall  be  holden  by  the  cords  of  your 
sins.' " 

So  this  was  "  the  deadest  past "  the  Major  had  ever 
heard  of! 

When  at  last  the  orchestra  was  silent,  and  when  the 
tide  of  melody  that  had  so  tossed  him  about,  swept 
back  sobbing  into  silence,  he  was  left  broken,  ex- 
hausted, half-drowned,  but  safe  upon  the  shore.  He 
must  tell  her  all,  must  tell  her  at  once.  It  was  impos- 
sible for  him  to  enter  upon  a  new  life  of  deception. 
After  all,  if  there  was  a  sensible  woman  in  the  world, 
that  woman  was  his  fiancee.  This  was  the  twentieth 


382  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

century.  Men  and  women  were  no  longer  the  victims 
of  distorted  theories,  of  mad  ideals;  they  were  the 
victims  of  themselves  only,  and  mankind  had  learned 
to  be  indulgent  and  to  forgive.  At  any  rate,  he  must 
take  his  chances.  Lying  he  would  have  no  more  of, 
come  what  might.  He  would  tell  her  that  very 
evening.  He  remembered  the  once  unmeaning  text 
that  he  had  learned  as  a  boy  and  this  he  went  out  re- 
peating as  he  started  home  to  change  his  clothes,  — 
"When  the  wicked  man  turneth  away  from  his 
wickedness  that  he  hath  committed,  and  doeth  that 
which  is  lawful  and  right,  he  shall  save  his  soul  alive." 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

THE   MAN. 

SlCK  at  heart  and  heavy  at  head,  Hardy  was  yet 
unable  to  deny  himself  one  more  word  with  his  god- 
dess before  he  left  the  shrine  forevermore.  He  was 
rebellious  at  first  and  inclined  to  take  his  fate  bitterly. 
To  give  her  up  would  not  have  been  so  hard  had  the 
suitor  been  the  ideal  man  for  his  ideal  woman.  But 
to  have  her  go  to  Dick  Jarvis,  with  whose  dissipations 
he  was  so  familiar  and  for  whose  mental  miseries  he 
could  make  no  allowance,  that  was  difficult  indeed. 
The  man  was  his  friend  and  as  his  friend  he  loved 
him ;  but  the  woman  was  an  idol  to  whom  even  he, 
purer  at  heart  than  any  of  his  companions,  had  not 
dared  to  approach,  and  he  instinctively  revolted  from 
the  slightest  suggestion  of  her  desecration. 

At  one  moment  he  felt  impelled  to  rush  to  her 
and  expose  this  roue  to  whom  she  was  about  to  plight 
herself  for  life.  At  the  next,  the  horrid  doubt  sug- 
gested itself  that  perhaps  Jarvis  had  made  no  secret 
of  the  shortcomings  and  that  she,  a  mere  woman  after 
all,  had  taken  him  at  his  own  frank  valuation.  But 
the  first  of  these  ideas  he  soon  repudiated  as  visionary 


384  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

and  the  second  he  banished  as  impious.  The  one  was 
impracticable,  the  other  hurt  only  himself.  What 
right  had  he  to  dictate  the  gift  of  her  affection?  What 
would  she  say  to  him  if  he  attempted  it?  He  was 
convinced  that,  for  whatever  reason  she  had  come  to 
do  so,  she  must  love  her  fiance".  This  being  so,  she 
would  refuse  to  believe  the  most  overwhelming  proofs, 
while  he  had  only  his  bare  word  and  the  strongest 
possible  motive  for  slander.  Yet,  to  believe  the  other 
proposition  was  to  destroy  his  own  idol,  to  deprive 
himself  of  the  poor  solace  of  a  dream.  No,  he  must 
take  the  middle  course.  She  could  not  know  the  real 
Dick  Jarvis  and  he  must  see  to  it,  as  best  he  might, 
that  she  should  never  know  him.  It  would  be  the 
most  inhuman  cruelty  to  dispel  her  illusion  either 
then  or  now.  Yet  the  waves  seemed  to  be  meeting 
above  his  head.  He  could  only  see  her  once  more 
and  say  good-bye. 

Peggy  received  him  easily  and  graciously  enough, 
though  she  expected  Dick  and  was  eager  for  his 
arrival.  For  some  time  she  talked  only  conven- 
tionalities, but  at  last  the  subject  that  was  uppermost 
in  Hardy's  heart  came  bluntly  to  his  lips. 

"  It 's  very  rude  of  me,  Miss  Bartol,"  he  said,  "  but 
I  came  here  to  congratulate  you,  and  I  have  n't  done 
so  yet." 

"Congratulate  me?"  she  asked.     "Upon  what?" 

For  a  moment  Hardy  half  hoped  that  Jarvis,  per- 


THE  MAN.  385 

ceiving  his  devotion,  had  been  chaffing  him.  Of  all 
delicate  situations,  the  most  exquisite  is  probably  that 
of  wishing  a  girl  joy  upon  an  engagement  of  which 
she  is  guiltless.  Hardy  got  out  of  it  a  little  better 
than  might  have  been  expected  of  him. 

"  Dick  hinted  at  a  very  good  piece  of  news  this 
afternoon." 

Peggy  was  decidedly  nettled.  She  had  kept  her 
part  of  the  bargain  of  secrecy,  and  she  was  very  angry 
that  Dick  had  so  flagrantly  broken  his.  An  affianced 
man  is  by  no  means  a  social  impossibility,  but  a 
woman  in  the  same  position  is  avoided  by  the  sterner 
sex  with  a  consistency  that  proves  the  honour  that  is 
among  thieves.  For  the  time  that  was  to  follow  Dick 
would  be  able  to  enjoy  himself,  whatever  happened ; 
but  she  would  be  alone  and,  liking  the  company  of 
men,  she  did  not  propose  to  throw  it  aside  too  rashly. 
If  Dick  saw  fit  to  lie  for  his  pleasure,  she  saw  no 
reason  why  she  was  not  privileged  to  do  the  same  for 
her  own  convenience.  Perhaps  it  was  this  mere 
pique  that  urged  her  to  begin  a  harmless  flirtation 
with  the  man  readiest  to  hand  so  long  as  that  man 
was  another  than  her  accepted  suitor. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Hardy,  Dick  's  been  joking,"  she  said 
with  a  genuine  gasp.  "  Don't  you  know  it 's  very 
terrible  to  congratulate  the  woman  anyhow?  But 
there  's  no  need  of  any  congratulations  in  this  case." 

"  What?  "  cried  Hardy  open  mouthed  and  hopeful. 

25 


386  JARVIS  OF  HARVARD. 

"  We  Ve  both  been  made  game  of,  that 's  all." 

"Is  — is  that  all?" 

She  knew  what  he  meant,  and  hesitated  a  minute 
before  replying,  but  she  was  chagrined  that  Dick 
should  have  done  this  thing  and  so  she  answered,  — 

"Yes." 

He  looked  suddenly  into  her  eyes,  his  own  full  of 
hope.  And  then  he  paused.  What  it  was  he  had 
seen  he  could  not  tell.  He  could  not  even  then  have 
dreamed  her  capable  of  the  most  venial  deception. 
And  yet  a  certain  subtle  something  in  her  face  told 
him  plainly  that  his  ideal  had  vanished.  He  remained 
but  a  little  while  longer,  talking  of  nothings,  and 
then  went  his  way,  saddened  he  scarcely  knew  why. 

Jarvis,  delayed  in  hurrying  toward  Peggy's  hotel, 
almost  met  him  on  the  steps.  He  was  a  trifle  dis- 
turbed, of  course,  but  decidedly  hopeful.  He  thought 
he  knew  womenkind  pretty  well  and  had  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  unless  a  woman  hates  you  there  will 
be  some  mercy  in  her  soul.  Unfortunately,  this  young 
philosopher  failed  to  recognise  the  fallacy  of  his 
premise.  When  a  man  says  he  knows  women  he  gen- 
erally means  that  his  relations  have  been  chiefly  with 
one  woman  and  he  has  found  out  that  he  did  not 
know  her. 

Peggy,  moreover,  was  not  in  a  favourable  mood. 
She  was  still  angry  at  Dick's  loquacity  and  bewildered 
at  the  sudden  departure  of  the  man  with  whom  she 


THE  MAN.  387 

had  been  trying  to  amuse  herself.  When  Jarvis  came 
in  she  was  seated  alone  in  the  little  reception-room  of 
their  suite,  dressed  in  a  virginal  white  that  became 
her  well  and  showed  to  advantage  her  heightened 
colour.  She  did  not  offer  to  kiss  him  as  he  advanced 
to  her,  but  gave  him  a  little  push  aside,  drawing  back 
the  supple  neck  clasped  by  a  single  string  of  pearls. 

" What's  the  trouble?"  he  asked,  laughing. 

"None,"  she  replied.  "Only  I  didn't  know  be- 
fore that  you  were  in  the  habit  of  boasting  of  your 
conquests  at  the  sacrifice  of  your  promises." 

"  I  don't  think  I  understand,"  he  said,  a  little 
coldly. 

"Don't  you  really?  If  you  don't,  I  don't  know 
who  does.  I  mean  that  you  Ve  been  telling  our 
engagement  all  about  town  before  you  tell  either  my 
mother  or  your  own  parents,  and  when  we  'd  agreed 
to  tell  nobody." 

4<  Oh,  come  now.  I  Ve  told  nobody  but  Hardy, 
and  I  know  he  would  n't  tell  anybody  else." 

His  voice  weakened  a  little  as  he  spoke,  for,  upon 
reflection,  he  could  not  be  quite  sure  of  the  latter 
statement. 

"  Nobody  but  Mr.  Hardy?"  she  asked,  ironically. 

"  Well,  yes.  You  see,  I  thought  I  'd  better  tell  the 
fellows  at  Cambridge.  The  fact  is,  they  '11  be  easier 
on  me  that  way.  You  can't  understand  it ;  but,  unless 
a  fellow  has  a  good  excuse  for  not  going  into  all  sorts 


388  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

of  things,  he  '11  be  turned  right  down  for  a  ninny,  as 
he  ought  to  be." 

"  It  would  have  been  well  if  you  had  told  me  all 
this  before  and  made  that  provision  at  the  time  of 
our  agreement.  As  it  is,  it  sounds  more  like  an 
excuse  than  an  explanation.  And,  besides,  it's  too 
late  —  I  've  told  Mr.  Hardy  that  we  were  not 
engaged." 

"  But  you  don't  mean  it?  " 

"  Mean  what?  I  think  it  was,  to  say  the  least, 
very  inconsiderate  of  you.  Can't  you  stand  a  few 
College  set-backs  for  my  sake  ?  I  told  you,  you  know, 
that  you  were  n't  acquainted  with  your  own  mind." 

Forgetting  that  he  had  come  to  beg  for  mercy,  he 
was  inconsequently  angry.  But  he  had  grown  to 
love  her  too  much  to  risk  an  open  rupture  by  giving 
vent  to  his  displeasure.  Manlike,  he  put  himself  at 
once  in  the  wrong. 

"  No,  no  !  "  he  cried,  "  I  do  love  you  and  I  'd  give 
up  anything  for  you.  You  know  that,  so  forgive  me 
just  this  once !  I  '11  stop  Hardy's  tongue  and  the 
Major's  and  the  matter  shall  end  there  just  as  you 
want  it." 

And  finally  she  did  forgive  him  with  all  the  gentle 
mercy  that  a  woman  can  display  when  she  is  herself 
the  offender. 

For  a  few  minutes  after  this  reconciliation  he  sat 
beside  her  ready  yet  fearful  to  begin  his  own  con- 


THE  MAN.  389 

fession.  Looking  down  at  the  head  that  rested  on 
his  shoulder,  stroking  tremulously  the  yellow  locks 
that  tossed  upon  his  coat,  every  line  and  tint  and 
feature  was  stamped,  a  perfect  picture  indelible, 
upon  the  tablets  of  his  memory.  It  was  one  of  those 
moments  that,  for  no  apparent  reason,  engrave  them- 
selves upon  our  hearts  and,  after  they  have  assumed 
an  unforeseen  importance,  accompany  us  to  our  grave. 
Through  undreamed  years  of  sunshine  and  shadow 
that  picture  will  never  quite  vanish  from  Jarvis' 
memory,  never  quite  die  away.  Before  that  night  he 
never  knew  how  much  he  loved  her.  A  wild  sorrow, 
a  passionate  tenderness,  passed  over  him,  so  that  his 
lips  scarce  dared  to  touch  her  cheek  ever  so  lightly, 
and  as  he  stroked  again  the  gold-smitten  hair  it  was 
with  a  vague  dread  now  that  he  was  doing  so  for  the 
last  time  upon  earth. 

"  Peggy,"  he  said  at  last,  true  to  his  new  resolve, 
whatever  its  consequences,  "  do  you  believe,  dear, 
that  when  a  woman  loves  a  man  she  loves  him  what- 
ever he  may  be  or  do  ?  " 

To  his  own  ears  his  voice  was  the  hateful  Judas  of 
his  soul,  but  to  hers  it  was  nothing  more  than  tender. 

"  You  foolish  boy  !  "  she  cried,  laughing.  "  Have 
you  a  sin  to  confess?  Out  with  it !  " 

"  No,  I  Ve  none  —  exactly.  But  do  you  think  so, 
dear?" 

"  That  depends  on  the  woman/' 


390  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

"Well,  suppose  she  was  the  best  and  grandest 
woman  in  the  world  ?  " 

"  Now  I  'm  sure  you  have  !  " 

He  was  smiling  himself  now. 

"  Would  she?  "  he  repeated. 

"  She  could  n't  love  anybody  but  the  man  she  saw 
in  him,  but  if  you  mean  something  he  'd  done  before 
—  why,  yes,  of  course  she  would,  that  is,  if  it  was  be- 
fore she  came  to  love  him,  you  know." 

"  Do  you  really  mean  it?     Are  you  sure?" 

She  had  raised  her  head  and  was  gazing  intently 
at  him,  the  little  white  satin  foot  beating  a  troublous 
tattoo  on  the  rug. 

"  Yes,"  she  said  again. 

"  Don't  be  scared,"  he  continued.  "  It 's  only 
a  story  I  'm  writing.  The  one  that's  to  get  me 
a  name  before  I  marry  you.  It 's  a  problem  novel, 
you  see,  and  I  want  you  to  solve  the  problem." 

The  face  cleared  and  a  smile,  like  the  sun  among 
storm  clouds,  lit  it  up. 

"  I  '11  not  promise  to  do  that.  But  I  '11  be  a  most 
attentive  listener." 

Yet  his  heart  failed  him. 

"  I  don't  know  that  I  ought  to  tell ;  it 's  bad  luck 
for  one  to  tell  one's  plot,"  he  said,  repenting. 

"Oh,  I  don't  count !" 

"  Don't  you,  though  ?  And  do  you  really  want  to 
hear?" 


THE  MAN.  391 

"  Of  course  I  do.     Don't  be  a  tease,  Dick." 

He  took  a  long  breath  and  began.  He  would  see 
the  thing  through. 

"  It's  the  story  —  the  story  of  a  chap  with  a  rich 
father ;  a  handy  thing  to  have  in  real  life  even,  who 
loved  him,  but  only  showed  it  in  indulgence.  He  was 
tutored  at  home ;  they  'd  never  let  him  go  to  board- 
ing school ;  it  was  the  one  thing  they  denied  him, 
and  he  grew  up  with  no  knowledge  of  the  real  world 
except  what  he  'd  got  from  books,  -—  a  false  and  twisted 
one,  somehow.  With  that  knowledge,  with  these 
ideas  of  things,  he  was  suddenly  turned  loose  upon 
real  life.  He  —  he  imagined  that  he'd  fallen  in  love 
with  the  first  beautiful  woman  whom  he  met.  She 
did  n't  love  him.  She  was  good-natured  and  bad. 
But  she  was  beautiful,  too,  of  his  own  position  in  life 
—  or  nearly  so  —  and  above  all  she  was  sophisticated. 
She  took  a  passing  fancy  to  him  and  ruined  him." 

As  he  proceeded,  overcome  with  a  great  self-pity, 
he  was  living  every  scene  over  again,  embellishing 
unconsciously  with  the  instinct  of  the  real  artist,  but 
at  heart  sincerely  true.  His  breath  came  short  and 
hot,  his  voice  was  hoarse  and  low  and  monotonous, 
but  binding,  intense,  convincing. 

"  He  had  to  go  right  to  Harvard,"  he  continued.  — - 
"  I  want  to  write  about  things  I  know  and  have  seen, 
you  understand  —  and  up  there,  even  as  soon  as  he 
left  her,  indeed,  he  realised  what  he  had  done,  what 


392  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

he  had  lost.  Of  a  sudden  he  had  been  brought  from 
a  world  of  lies  face  to  face  with  the  truth,  and  he 
could  n't  bear  it.  He  went  from  bad  to  worse,  from 
hell  to  hell,  deeper  and  deeper,  faster  and  faster,  until 
he  got  as  low  in  the  gutter  as  a  man  can,  and  yet  his 
eyes  were  fixed  on  heaven  all  the  time,  for  all  the 
time  he  was  looking  for  what  he  could  n't  find.  And 
then,  all  of  a  sudden  again,  he  met  a  girl,  —  a  pure, 
good  girl,  —  and  he  —  he  loved  her.  He  could  n't 
save  himself  except  through  her,  and  she  would  not 
have  touched  him  if  he  'd  told  her  what  he  was.  So 
he  did  n't  tell  her  until  —  until  after  he  'd  made  love 
to  her.  And  her  answer  —  that's  the  problem," 
Jarvis  lamely  concluded. 

He  drew  a  long  breath  of  suspense. 

Peggy  had  grown  ashy  pale  again  and  now  with- 
drew the  hand  he  had  thus  far  managed  to  retain. 
Her  face  was  turned  away.  When  she  spoke  at  last 
it  was  in  a  tone  the  very  reproduction  of  his. 

"  What  do  you  mean?  "  she  asked,  scarcely  above 
a  whisper,  yet  enunciating  every  word  as  if  it  hurt 
her  but  must  be  spoken. 

"  Can't  you  guess  ?    Have  n't  you  guessed  already  ?  " 

He  was  almost  sobbing.  He  tried  to  take  her 
hand  again,  but  again  she  drew  it  away. 

"  I  think  I  can,"  she  said. 

"  And  what 's  the  woman's  answer  when  he  asks  her 
if  she  loves  him  still?  What 's  your  answer,  Peggy?  " 


THE   MAN.  393 

"Was  — was  that  all?" 

«  Yes  —  except  the  details." 

"  Spare  me  them  !  " 

"  Then  you  do  forgive  me  ?  " 

She  answered  very  slowly,  her  face  turned  from 
him. 

"  If  that  was  all  —  yes." 

He  must  tell  her  all.  A  half  lie  would  now  be 
worse  than  the  whole  truth. 

ft  Well,"  he  went  on,  trying  hard  to  appear  at  his 
ease.  "  Of  course,  I  did  n't.  —  You  see,  it 's  hard  for 
you  to  understand  these  things.  —  But  after  I  'd  made 
up  my  mind  to  tell  you  that  I  loved  you,  after  that 
drive  last  fall,  and  even  after  the  football  game,  or 
until  I  came  down  here  —  I  did  n't  break  off  right 
away." 

"  Dick ! " 

There  was  a  long  pause.  The  rain  had  come  on 
again  and  he  could  distinctly  hear  the  drops  plashing 
dismally  against  the  window-pane.  Then  all  at  once 
he  flung  himself  upon  her  and  folded  her  tight  in  his 
arms. 

"Peggy!  Peggy!  What's  the  matter?"  he  cried, 
his  whole  soul  pouring  out  at  his  lips.  "  Sweetheart ! 
Won't  you  answer?  Won't  you  speak  to  me?  Oh, 
I  can't  lose  you  now !  You  said  you  'd  forgive  me. 
Forgive  me  !  I  'm  bad,  oh,  I  know  I  'm  bad  !  " 

She  wrenched  herself  away  and  stood  with  blazing 


394  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

eyes  looking  down  at  him  cowering  with  tear-stained 
face  and  arms  stretched  out  to  her. 

"  And  you  —  you  dared  offer  yourself  to  a  pure 
woman  !  "  she  said. 

Light,  happy,  thoughtless  often  to  extremes,  she 
now  suddenly  found  herself  the  subject  of  seemingly 
immutable  principles  she  had  never  guessed  extant 
before. 

"  Other  men  are  the  same,"  he  basely  protested. 
"  I  was  only  frank  enough  to  confess.  —  I  could  n't 
live  a  lie  with  you. — That  was  all  my  crime." 

"  Other  men  may  sin,  but  they  can  repent  too," 
she  answered,  in  a  dry,  hard  voice,  giving  easy  vent  to 
truths  she  found  ready  within  her,  truths  to  which 
she  had  never  formerly  given  a  thought.  "  You 
don't  know  what  repentance  is.  You  tell  me  you 
loved  me  and  in  the  same  breath  confess  that 
you  were  — .  Oh  !  Why,  you  would  go  back  to  it  all 
to-night  if  it  offered !  " 

His  excuse  was  the  old  one,  the  last  resource  of  a 
weak  man. 

"You  don't  understand.  Women  never  can. — 
They  are  so  different  from  men." 

"  Then  I  thank  God  for  it  that  they  are." 

In  vain  he  tried  to  plead,  to  argue.  There  can  be 
nothing  so  adamantine,  nothing  so  cruel  as  a  pure 
woman.  For  one  moment  she  appeared  broken;  but 
she  never  really  wavered,  and  soon  regained  her  self- 


THE   MAN.  395 

command.  She  spoke  in  a  voice  at  times  low  and 
calm,  and  again  high  and  tremulous,  supercharged 
with  emotion,  but  quite  without  expression. 

"  You  are  frank,"  she  said.  "  I  suppose  I  must 
thank  you  for  that,  —  yes,  I  must  thank  you  for  that, 
—  but  do  you  suppose  I  can  love  you  ?  do  you  think 
I  could  ever  trust  you  after  —  this  ?  " 

"  But  I  did  n't  know  you  loved  me  then  !  " 

"  You  knew  you  loved  me  —  as  well  as  you  ever  can 
love,  I  suppose.  It 's  not  that  you  were  wrong.  It 's 
that  you  can't  love;  you're  spiritually,  mentally, 
incapable  of  it." 

"  But  I  was  a  mere  boy  then,  an  irresponsible  child, 
a  madman !  " 

"  You  were  ready  enough  to  disclaim  your  youth  a 
day  or  two  ago." 

The  most  truthful  of  men  will  unconsciously  try  to 
appear  what  he  wishes  himself  to  be.  It  is  easier 
than  being  it.  So  Jarvis  had  perfect  faith  in  his  own 
words  when  he  replied. 

"  Oh,  can't  you  see  how  it  was?"  he  cried.  "  You 
were  my  ideal  from  the  start  —  I  did  n't  know  what  I 
wanted,  but  you  were.  It  was  you  I  was  hunting  for 
through  the  whole  mad  dream,  blindly  perhaps,  but 
still  hunting  for  you  through  it  all.  That 's  why  I 
grew  tired  of  them  all  so  soon.  It  was  a  constant 
pursuit  upon  false  scents  and  the  capture  always 
proved  my  disillusioning.  Through  it  all  —  the  worst 


396  JARVIS   OF  HARVARD. 

and  the  blackest  part  of  it —  my  heart  was  true  to  you 
all  the  time  !  " 

"  I  can't  see  it  that  way.  I  may  be  doing  you  a 
wrong  —  oh,  I  wish  I  knew  !  — but  I  can't  see  it  that 
way.  I  hope  for  your  sake  that  you  believe  it  so." 

"  Then  what  shall  I  do?     What  shall  I  do?  " 

"  You  have  only  one  duty.  Go  back  to  this  first 
woman  — -  you  belong  to  her.  It  is  she  you  mean,  of 
course)  when  you  talk  about  not  '  breaking  off.'  Go 
back  to  her.  Give  her  the  best  that's  in  you.  Give 
her  your  whole  life,  your  whole  work.  Only  by  sav- 
ing her  can  you  ever  hope  to  save  yourself." 

"  It's  impossible  to  go  back  to  her  in  the  way 
you  mean.  I  may  belong  to  her,  in  a  sense,  but  she 
does  n't  belong  to  me.  She  was  bad  when  I  met  her.  I 
left  her  as  I  found  her,  no  worse,  no  better.  If  I 
return  to  her,  it  only  means  to  go  back  to  hell  —  to 
amuse  her  for  a  day  and  then  be  turned  away  into  the 
old  rut.  She  'd  no  more  dream  of  marrying  me  than 
of  marrying  the  moon." 

"  Then  I  see  nothing  for  you  to  do.  Don't  ask  me, 
anyhow.  You  Ve  been  cruel  enough  and  I  'm  not  fit 
to  give  advice." 

"  I  might  go  to  the  Philippines  and  die  of  the  fever, 
of  course,"  he  said  bitterly. 

"  It  would  be  the  best  thing  for  your  parents  —  and 
for  me." 

"  Then   you  do  love  me  still  —  a   little,  oh,  ever 


THE  MAN.  397 

so  little?"  Hope  blazed  in  his  face  once  more — for 
the  last  time.  In  a  voice  that  was  high  and  piping  he 
rallied  all  the  shattered  forces  of  his  passion  and 
reason  for  a  last  assault  It  was  a  brave  charge.  He 
called  upon  her  love,  her  pity ;  with  all  the  eloquence 
of  despair  he  entreated  her;  his  gesticulating  hands 
making  fearful  attempts  to  caress  her,  his  face  dis- 
torted almost  beyond  human  semblance. 

But  the  attempt  was  futile.  She  listened,  her 
brow  contracted  in  pain,  the  furrows  deepening  at 
every  fresh  endearing  epithet  and  weird  new  shadows 
of  age  stealing  into  her  fresh  young  face.  When, 
panting  wildly,  he  had  stopped  from  pure  exhaustion, 

"  Is  that  all?  "  she  asked  again. 

He  stretched  out  his  arms  to  her  once  more. 

"  Don't  touch  me,  I  say !  "  she  cried,  gathering 
back  her  skirt. 

"Then  have  you  nothing  to  say?"  he  asked,  ab- 
sently twisting  a  ring  upon  his  finger. 

"  Nothing,"  she  replied. 

"  Then  I  suppose  that 's  all.     Good-night " 

And  without  raising  his  eyes  he  crossed  the  room 
and  went  out. 

She  waited  until  the  door  had  closed  upon  him  and 
then  in  that  place,  with  its  tawdry  gilt  and  white  furni- 
ture making  so  incongruous  a  setting  for  a  tragedy, 
she  threw  herself  at  length  upon  a  lounge. 

She  buried  her  head  in  the  cushions.     She  dug  her 


398  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

small  white  fingers  with  their  angrily  gleaming  jewels 
into  the  satin  coverings.  Her  whole  body  was  torn 
and  rent  with  convulsive  sobs. 

"  Oh,  Dick,  Dick !  Come  back  !  "  she  cried.     "  My 
God,  is  nothing  pure  ?  " 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

MAN    AND    WOMAN. 

OUTSIDE  Jarvis  stood  for  a  moment  in  the  rain, 
asking  himself  where  he  was  and  whither  he  was  go- 
ing. He  turned  up  Walnut  Street,  the  wet  drops  in 
his  face  gradually  restoring  him  to  consciousness. 
His  whole  life  swam  before  him  :  babyhood,  boyhood, 
manhood  —  but  there  was  no  youth ;  he  had  never 
known  what  that  was.  He  remembered  it  all  as  the 
drowning  man  is  said  to  remember.  Even  Lily 
Forrest  was  there.  Poor  Lily,  he  thought;  how 
quickly  he  had  forgotten  her  !  He  was  being  punished 
for  that  now  —  for  everything. 

Endowed  with  whatever  a  man  might  desire,  with 
nothing  to  do  but  sit  still  and  let  joy  come  to  him,  he 
had  missed  it  all.  He  had  plunged  into  the  weary 
search  for  happiness,  going  no  farther  astray  after 
corpse-lights  than  most  other  men  were  doing,  and 
now,  like  Moses,  he  must  die  on  the  Mountain  of 
Nebo,  in  sight  of  the  Promised  Land.  "  All  Naphthali 
and  the  land  of  Ephraim  and  Manasseh,  and  all  the 
land  of  Judah  unto  the  utmost  sea  and  the  south  to 


4OO  JARVIS   OF   HARVARD. 

the  plain  of  the  valley  of  Jericho,  and  the  city  of  palm 
trees  unto  Zoar :  "  he  had  gained  for  his  pains  but  a 
sight  of  these. 

He  had  but  tasted  a  little  honey  and  lo,  he  must  die. 
The  awful  monotony  of  life,  the  terrible  sordidness  of 
death,  were  clear  to  him  at  this  moment  as  they  had 
never  been  before.  Yet  he  had  tried  !  If  there  were 
gods  above  they  knew  that  he  had  tried  !  And  what 
had  it  all  proven?  Out  through  the  years  he  must 
send  his  soul  alone,  alone,  to  sin  again  and  swear  to 
sin  no  more,  to  hope  and  yet  to  fall  again.  After  the 
multitude  of  his  bitter  struggles,  his  crime  and  his 
repentance,  his  laughter  and  his  tears,  he  was  to-day 
just  where  he  had  been  eighteen  months  —  eighteen 
centuries  !  —  before  it  all  began. 

The  inconclusiveness  of  the  human  tragedy,  that 
was  it !  Nothing  substantial  to  be  obtained  ;  nothing 
actual  to  be  won.  Along  the  weary  pilgrimage  of  life 
we  seek  the  incomplete ;  we  live  for  threescore  years 
and  ten  and  prove  nothing,  find  nothing,  die  empty- 
handed.  Was  this  all  that  we  were  made  for,  to  do 
life-long  battle  with  mighty  forces  in  unequal  war  ? 
The  tremendous  progress  of  mankind  works  on 
through  slow,  unending  seons  to  its  consummation; 
the  progress  of  the  individual  is  swallowed  up  and 
lost  in  its  process. 

And  he  had  been  so  near  the  goal  at  last !     He  had 
had  the  glimpse  of  heaven  that  showed  him  the  one 


MAN   AND    WOMAN.  4OI 

certainty  of  his  life,  that  made  clear,  beyond  doubt  or 
peradventure  how  glad  he  could  have  been  —  how 
easily  he  would  have  been — true  and  strong  forever 
had  he  but  been  allowed  to  pass  the  sacred  portals. 
How  bravely  he  should  then  have  returned  to  College 
and  learned  there  the  real  lesson  of  Harvard,  a  lesson 
he  should  have  carried  thence  throughout  a  happy 
life !  — 

He  was  interrupted  by  the  sound  of  music,  by  the 
"Traume"  of  Wagner.  He  looked  up  and  found 
himself  before  the  house  of  Mary  Braddock.  Perhaps 
it  was  all  an  illusion  and  yet,  through  those  cold  stone 
walls,  the  subtle  pianissimo  stole  out  and  a  low  voice 
—  the  voice  of  the  syren  —  wooed  and  wrapped  him 
warmly  round  and  drew  him  forward. 

He  hesitated,  but  thought  that  he  saw  the  finger  of 
Fate.  He  loathed  her,  and  somehow  the  insidious, 
sobbing  strains,  rising  and  falling  in  weird  overtones, 
seemed  to  have  a  new  meaning  that  he  could  not  at 
once  distinguish.  Yet  he  felt  that  she  was  somewhere 
there  thinking  of  him  as  she  sang.  Was  it  not  the 
cords  of  his  sins?  Must  he  again  return  to  the  old 
wallowing  in  the  mire? 

He  went  up  the  steps  and  put  his  hand  upon  the 
bell-knob. 

No! 

There  was  yet  something  to  be  done  —  much  to  be 
done.  He  had  balanced  his  moral  ledgers  and  found 


402  JARVIS    OF   HARVARD. 

the  grand  total  of  his  loss,  but  —  there  rushed  upon 
him  the  abiding  sense  of  it  —  there  still  was  left  one 
thing,  one  thing  that  he  would  never  throw  away. 
Whatever  his  faith  or  unfaith  in  God  and  man,  he 
could  at  last  believe  in  himself.  He  had,  in  the  past 
few  days  won  his  own  first  skirmish  and  assured  the 
end.  Because  that  victory  was  uncrowned,  was  he  to 
be  coward  enough  to  retreat  at  such  a  time?  He 
would  never  now  give  up  all  that  he  had  gained, 
never  !  In  the  great  fight  with  Destiny  the  individual 
might  be  doomed  to  defeat,  but  it  was  the  individual's 
glory  to  have  and  to  wield  a  power  that  should  turn 
defeat  to  triumph,  —  to  be  unperturbed  in  suffering 
and  implacable  in  endurance ;  to  do  his  work  in  spite 
of  Fate ;  to  fall  in  harness  and  to  die  with  smiting 
sword  in  hand.  Crowns  !  What  a  crown  was  there  ! 
Love  was  lost,  hope  was  lost,  joy  was  lost.  But 
Richard  Jarvis  remained. 

Resolutely  he  turned  away,  his  shoulders  squared 
for  the  long  conflict,  his  young  head  high,  never  to 
bow  again. 

But  before  he  had  left  the  steps,  while  yet  the 
music  fell  harmlessly  upon  his  ears,  there  came  an- 
other sound,  —  a  sound  that  made  him  instantly  all 
attention,  the  patter  of  light,  unsteady  footsteps  run- 
ning up  behind  him. 

He  wheeled  about  and,  under  the  unregarded  glare 
of  the  electric  lights,  the  hatless,  cloakless  form  of 


MAN   AND    WOMAN.  403 

Peggy  Bartol  flung  itself,  between  hysterical  laughter 
and  joyful  tears,  straight  into  his  waiting  arms. 

They  said  no  word  —  what  need  was  there  of 
words?  —  but,  as  they  stood  a  moment  so,  the  sing- 
ing voice  within  the  house  died  away  and  the 
music  of  the  piano  continued  alone  —  continued  alone 
and  rose  once  more  to  that  true  meaning  of  the 
"  Traume,"  that  high  love  which,  since  it  first  held 
sway,  has  mocked  at  all  laws  of  custom  and  systems  of 
philosophy  —  and  shall  mock  them  to  the  end. 


Page's  Series  of  Copyright  Reprints 
in  Popular  Editions  Hitherto  Issued 
at  $1.50 

We  take  pleasure  in  announcing  a  series  of  copyrighted  novels, 
reprints  of  some  of  the  newest  and  strongest  books  on  our  list,  now 
published  for  the  first  time  in  a  popular  edition,  bound  strikingly  and 
handsomely  in  cloth,  with  frontispiece  or  other  illustrations. 
Twenty-four  Titles  as  follows : 

1.  A   Gentleman  Player.      By   ROBERT    NEILSON    STEPHENS, 
author  of  "  Philip  Winwood,"  etc. 

"  An   absorbing,   well-written    romance   of   the    Elizabethan 
period."  —  N.  Y.  Commercial  Advertiser. 

2.  A  Man-at-Arms.     By  CLINTON  SCOLLARD. 

"  Rings  with  the  clash  of  steel."  —  New  Orleans  Picayune. 

3.  A  Sister  to  Evangeline.     By  CHARLES    G.    D.    ROBERTS, 
author  of  "  The  Heart  of  the  Ancient  Wood,"  etc. 

"  Swift  action,  fresh  atmosphere,  wholesome  purity  mark  this 
strong  novel."  —  The  Toledo  Blade. 

4.  An  Enemy  to  the  King.     By  ROBERT  NEILSON  STEPHENS. 

"  Interesting  from  the  first  cover  to  the  last  page."  —  Brook- 
lyn Eagle. 

5.  Captain  Fracasse.     By  THEOPHILE  GAUTIER. 

"  Few  who  will  not  read  it  from  cover  to  cover."  —  N.  Y. 
Herald. 

6.  Captain  Ravenshaw.     By  ROBERT  NEILSON  STEPHENS. 

"  Not  since  the  absorbing  adventures  of  D'Artagnan  have  we 
had  anything  so  good."  —  The  Boston  Journal. 

7.  Dauntless.     By  CAPTAIN  EWAN  MARTIN. 

"  A  superb  description  of  the  Irish  gentleman  as  a  soldier." 

—  The  Brooklyn  Eagle. 

8.  His  Excellency's  English  Governess.     By  SYDNEY  C.  GRIER. 

"A  noteworthy  achievement." —  The  Scotsman. 

9.  Jarvis  of  Harvard.     By  REGINALD    WRIGHT    KAUFFMAN, 
author  of  "The  Things  that  Are  Caesar's." 

"  A  strong  and  skilful  novel,  true  to  the  college  atmosphere." 

—  Boston  Journal. 

10.    Lally  of  the  Brigade.     By  L.  McMANus. 

"  All  that  a  war  romance  should  be,  winning  the  reader's  in- 
terest and  sympathies."  —  Chicago  7~"ribune. 


PAGE'S  SERIES   OF  COPYRIGHT  REPRINTS 

n.     Like  Another  Helen.     By  SYDNEY  C.  GRTER. 

"  Never  fails  to  engross  the  reader."  —  N.  Y.  World. 

12.  Manders.     By  ELWYN  BARRON. 

"  A  romance  as  sweet  as  violets." —  Town  Topics. 

13.  My  Strangest  Case.     By  GUY  BOOTHBY. 

"  The  hero  is  a  second  Sherlock  Holmes  in  acuteness,  and 
the  tale  holds  one's  interest  to  the  last."  —  Worcester  Spy. 

14.  Philip  Winwood.     By  ROBERT  NEILSON  STEPHENS. 

"One  of  the  very  few  choice  American  historical  stories."  — 
The  Boston  Transcript. 

15.  She  Stands  Alone.     By  MARK  ASHTON. 

"  Few  novels  of  the  present  day  can  stand  comparison  with 
this  remarkable  book."  —  Albany  Argus. 

1 6.  Stephen  Holton.     By  CHARLES  FELTON   PIDGIN,  author  of 
"  Quincy  Adams  Sawyer,"  etc. 

"Contains  all  the  elements  of  popular  success." —  The  Bos- 
ton Transcript. 

17.  The  Black  Terror.     By  JOHN  K.  LEYS. 

"An  absorbing  romance." —  The  Chicago  Tribune. 

18.  The  Cloistering  of  Ursula.     By  CLINTON  SCOLLARD. 

"  Quick  and  easy  in  style,  evincing  a  sense  of  the  delicate 
and  fit."  —  Louisville  Evening  Post. 

19.  The  Continental  Dragoon.    By  ROBERT  NEILSON  STEPHENS. 

"  Brimming  with  incident  and  action."  —  Los  Angeles  Herald. 

20.  The  Knight  of  King's  Guard.     By  CAPTAIN  EWAN  MARTIN. 

"A  most  admirable  novel." —  Church  Progress. 

21.  The  Mate  of  the  Good  Ship  York.     By  W.  CLARK  RUSSELL. 

"  A  story  filled  with  the  savor  of  the  sea."  —  Portland  Press. 

22.  The  Road  to  Paris.     By  ROBERT  NEILSON  STEPHENS. 

"  The  reader  will  find  it  hard  to  lay  down  the  book."  —  The 
Pittsburg  Times. 

23.  The  Triumph  of  Death.     By  GABRIELE  D'ANNUNZIO. 

"  The  writer  of  the  greatest  promise  to-day  in  Italy."  —  The 
Bookman. 

24.  Vivian  of  Virginia.     By  HULBERT  FULLER. 

"  A  well-conceived,  well-plotted    romance,  full   of   life    and 
adventure." —  Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 


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